Lake Anna SP, VA

Lake Anna in central Virginia is a large fresh water reservoir, created by damming the North Anna River.  There’s a nuclear power plant on the one side, not visible from the state park.  The park is large, with trails, swim beach and boat launch. During our days there, the Virginia ANVIL Ultra Triathlon was taking place in the state park.  I got tired just looking at these guys biking and running, there’s a swim portion as well.

We hiked around the park, it has a beautiful beach area and plenty of trails.  But the stay in the area was focused on visiting Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson and Montpelier, home of James Madison.  It was an interesting contrast between the two locations.  Monticello has been managed by a non-profit for many years and it has interpreters and tours on site.  Montpelier seems to be a more recent acquisition and only offers one house tour.

We took the house tour in Monticello, it was interesting to see how Jefferson expanded the house over the years.  We also spend time with Jefferson himself (an interpreter of course), that was really good as he was fully in character and took questions, some pretty tough ones, from the audience.

Montpelier seemed smaller in comparison, though I think Madison was a much more interesting man.  He wrote and read a lot, though Jefferson did as well.  No doom scrolling on social media for them!

I enjoyed Lake Anna campground, after the triathlon athletes were done, it was rather quiet, good place to relax.