The audience was very energetic in Culpeper. Very responsive to what we did. Culpeper was a short 2 hour drive from where we were in Linthicum. We set up our instruments at the high school with the help of the school's music teacher, Adam.
Culpeper has a very active board with many volunteers. Volunteers are the reason that community concert tickets are so reasonable. I don't know why many musical concerts have to have such high priced tickets. If one does the math for the big extravagant entertaining 
shows, one night can gross a million dollars. We complain about our athletes being high paid what about the rock 'n' roll stars. After thinking about it, I'm going to take some guitar lessons. I don't know if I'll be able to make it with the harp!The concert went very well. The audience was very generous with the amount of CDs that they purchased. my 401(K) song was a big hit with the audience. Someone phoned the following morning and wanted me to record it on a CD.
Two couples came from far away to attend our concert. We are humbled when people come from so far away just to hear us sing and play. The Fortners traveled from North Carolina. They did the same the last time we were back in the East when we were in Georgia. The Antolowitz's drove all the way from New York. It was our first time meeting them. We will see them again as their daughter has recently moved to Seattle.
We had a day off to explore the Culpeper area. Many of the battles of the Civil War were fought in Virginia. It was the battleground. The Viriginia highway department has done a remarkable job in marking historical spots. One could take years to travel the Virginia roads if all the signs were read.
We visited James Monroe's (the fourth President of the United States) plantation home, Montpelier, located 30 miles south of Culpeper. In 1903, the duPont family purchased the 
plantation. President Monroe' birthday was 2 days prior to when we were there. That is the reason for all of the gorgeous wreaths in the family cemetery.(the following has been copied from www.montpelier.org)
"Montpelier had grown into an almost incomprehensible behemoth. The Madisons twice expanded it. There were mid- and late nineteenth-century alterations. And when the wealthy William duPont Sr. bought the home in 1901, he enlarged it from thirty-six rooms above the cellar to 104. He also raised more than 100 structures on the grounds, including a general store. Two of the house's first-floor spaces remained in their Madison-era form.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which in 1984 became Montpelier's ninth owner,
asked Colonial Williamsburg's architectural research department in 1997 for help understanding how the house had evolved, and how, renovation to renovation, it had looked.Despite his accomplishments, Madison is perhaps the least known of the nation's Founding Fathers — although his contemporaries had a deep appreciation of his abilities and his contributions. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, one fellow delegate praised Madison as possessing both the intellectual depth of the scholar and the practical wisdom of the politician, and observed that he was involved in the "management" of every major issue. He was hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" by his peers, and scholars agree that no one had a greater role in shaping American Constitutional theory and in framing the particulars of representative government than James Madison. And, it was at his beloved Montpelier that James Madison's great investigation into the principles and ideas of government occurred. It was at Montpelier where he read, thought, and conceived of the foundation of democracy upon which our country still stands."
The Virginia countryside is beautiful, especially this time of the year when is grass is starting to giveway to hints of green. The rolling hills fall on top of each other looking west to the top of Shenendoah National Park on the crest of the Appalachians. We found rest in Culpeper, VA.
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