Poplar Forest, President Thomas Jefferson's Retreat

After visiting the National D Day Memorial, we headed to Poplar Forest which was Thomas Jefferson's personal retreat. We had visited Monticello previously and we were in awe of all the modernizations and inventions that Jefferson put into his home so we wanted to see what he did with his retreat too. We were a bit disappointed because the retreat is still being reconstructed back to what it was during Jefferson's time. That meant that what we were looking at was a lot of construction. We had to really use our imagination to figure out what it would look like when it is finished. Also, we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the construction - bummer!

Front Drive to Poplar Forest

Our Guide on the tour of the home

In 1773 Jefferson inherited 4,800 acres from his father-in-law, John Wayles. While serving as President of the United States, Jefferson supervised the laying of the foundations for a new octagonal house. The octagon house includes a central cube room, 20 feet on a side, porticos to the north and south, and a service wing to the east.

Jefferson visited this house in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains as often as four times a year, frequently staying as long as a month. Poplar Forest was a personal architectural creation and the place where Jefferson found rest and leisure and enjoyed private time with his family.

After we left Poplar Forest, we drove over to Natural Bridge but it was getting late and we decided that the $19 each to get in for less than an hour wasn't worth it.

Then our luck got even worse as we tried to have dinner at the Pink Cadillac Diner. We waited awhile to get seated and then we were just plain ignored for more than 15 minutes. We finally just got up and left. We drove back to the campground and had some leftovers for dinner.