Visiting Monticello (or, at least Thom Jefferson’s new parking lot)

From the road.

Feeding off the local Wi-Fi from the Loretta Lynn Kitchen somewhere between Nashville and Memphis. Here's a dispatch I wrote last night from a mountainside in eastern Tennessee.

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Started out from Baltimore today on the family road trip. Got around the DC beltway in record time and headed straight for Charlottesville, VA -- home of Monticello.

Between my wife’s love of architecture and my own love of history, we were looking forward to showing our three kids the pride of Virginian Neoclassicism. We’d been through the old house years ago back when we started dating; I like to think Thom had something to do with convincing her that I was an alright guy. Back in those days we were even more strapped for cash than we are now, which made our discovery at entering the new ‘Monticello Welcome Center’ such a harsh surprise.

Turns out that for two adults and three elementary schoolers to check out the old joint would cost about $65.

For those of you, like me, who are bad with numbers, that’s: sixty-five dollars.

Are you kidding?

Isn’t Thomas Jefferson the father of our ‘free’ public school system? You think old Thom might think $20 a head and 8 bucks a tyke is a bit much?

I understand, I understand. They do have to pay for the new welcome center building (where you can buy a Thom Jefferson decanter set and any number of Declaration of Independence replicas). But really. The irony.

The cruelty.

It is just plain wrong to price folks out of their own history. My wife lost it when the ranger wouldn’t even let us visit Jefferson’s grave.

Is this how little we, as a people, respect our history? To turn a president’s house into a giftshop for the entitled and to charge a thief’s ransom to travelers too tired to turn around and leave?

So we ate lunch in the parking lot and taught the kids about the real meaning of democracy.

- Written on Cumberland Mtn. near Crossville, TN on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 9:24PM

Road Trip

In a half-hour, I'm headed out on the highway.

Destination: San Antonio for the AP Annual Conference where I'll be giving a presentation on 'Blogs and the Paperless Classroom'. Hope to see some of you all there.

Don't know what my Wi-Fi is gonna be like out on the highways of Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi; but I'm going to try to blog the whole trip. A little journey to help with the digestion of a bunch of ideas that have been floating around in my head.

I'm also running a series of 'From the Archives' posts throughout the week which will highlight some of the places our conversation has gone here on TeachPaperless.com over the last six months. Always a good idea to go back and look at where your thinking was; if it hasn't changed, you ain't talking with enough folks.

San Antonio or bust.