It's Friday and we've only got about a day and a half before we arrive back home.  Our travels today were in familiar territory in central Virginia where we have taken many back roads on car tours with Billy Melton and our Model T friends in Virginia.  Central Virginia is really a pretty area with some significant history. 

Thomas Jefferson, our third U.S. President designed and began building Monticello, his primary plantation near Charlottsville in his mid-twenties.  It is a modest home for such an important man but is unique because Jefferson was an inventor as well as a President and astute businessman and farmer.  One of the interesting features to me is that his bed was built into an alcove and opens on both sides - on one side to his study and on the other to his dressing room.  He was a man that was organized and innovative and interested in the the exploration of the American continent.  He was the President who authorized the explorations of Lewis and Clark into uncharted areas of our country in the Northwest.  We didn't take time to go to Monticello on this trip, but it is well worth visiting if you are in the area.

Our day started out chilly and with a slight drizzle.  How chilly?  I only needed a light jacket and a heavy jacket this morning - a definite improvement over yesterday morning.  This is a picture of the fields and low mountains near Waynesboro, VA which is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Don't you love this bridge?  It was at the entry to an old estate on the road from Charlottesville to Bremo Bluff where we were to meet good friends for lunch.  I wouldn't mind having this bridge.  I don't have a creek, so I don't need a bridge.  That doesn't mean I can't wish for it.  I don't have a village of old buildings either, but I still wish for it,

  
Into the life of every antique car person comes the time when you have your first flat tire.  Today was our day.  Joe was been driving antique cars since the mid-1960's and had never had a flat.  We were on our way to see Billy and Barbara Melton in Bremo Bluff and were about 30 miles from them when we had our unexpected adventure. The jack was, of course, in the compartment which supports the back seat cushion. The back seat cushion had been removed for the trip so that we would have storage room for everything we needed to take on our trip.  To change the tire, you need the jack, so everything had to be unloaded from the back seat of the car.  Everything, included our frog friends!

Joe changing the tire.  With this type of old car, you exchange the flat tire with the spare.  It is a reasonably easy fix and a reasonably speedy one.  We were back on the road in about 30 minutes.

Another old gas station on the left for my village.  I'll also take the other old buildings. Anyone want to help me move them?  We saw these on the way to Bremo Bluff.

On this quiet and relatively traffic-free road we made pretty good time after changing the tire.  It was great to see Billy Melton and his sister, Barbara, again.  It had been a almost 4 years since we had seen them.  I meant to take a picture of them with the old car, but got to talking with them, reminiscing and just catching up on what was happening in their lives and goodbyes are always tough, so I just forgot to get the picture taken.  I really regret that.  

We are spending the night in Orange, VA and will travel on to Leesburg tomorrow evening.  Early Sunday morning, we'll cross the Potomac River into Maryland on a small car ferry at White's Ferry.  Then by back roads we'll travel across Maryland and into Pennsylvania, arriving home early Sunday afternoon.