Afer getting caught up on our sleep on Sunday night we let the kids sleep and we left the Howard Johnson's in Maryland at around 10:00 a.m. We were on our way to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. After experiencing our first bout with the traffic (We got stuck on the bridge going over the Potomac into Virginia, but it gave us our first glance at the Capital building and the Washington Monument) we got onto highway one, the George Washington Memorial Parkway. It was a beautiful section of road. Lot's of places to stop for a picnic and just to enjoy the river and its banks. We made it to Mount Vernon without too much trouble.
As we entered Mount Vernon there was greeter there who kepts saying "Happy Bastille" Day. I thought he said "Happy Best Deal" day. I thought we had come on the right day to save some money, but soon found out I had just heard him incorrectly. After petting the goats ouside the entry gate we walked through the museum and watched a short film on George Washington. It was very moving. (Okay, maybe that was just me, although I worked hard at helping my kids realize for the rest of the vacation that our freedom came then, and still comes with a price)
We made our way to the main Mount Vernon attraction, George and Martha's house. Calvin was wearing a Christian shirt he has that says "loser" on the front of it. As we were standing in line, the guy who was playing the role of a slave worker on the grounds inquired as to why Calvin had such low self-esteem. Of course that gave us a chance to explain what his shirt was all about.
In George's house we learned that Martha always had a Virginia Ham on the table every night for dinner. There was one room that was an awesome bright green, (Calvin's opinion) and the house, although made of wood was painted to make it look like stone. They would paint it and then throw sand on it. We also learned that George Washington loved Strawberry Ice Cream. We saw his current tomb and his former tomb, and also some of his farmland. He was quite an innovator when it came to farming, and all his time as General and then President of the United States were a distant 2nd and 3rd to his longing to be at home and simply work his land.
After a good day at Mount Vernon we meandered our way through the Washington DC suburbs to Clifton, which is an outlying suburb. We finally found our way to the home of Lee and Cindy Wilbur. Cindy is Rose's cousin. We would stay for them for the next 3 nights. We had a good dinner with them before they all had to leave for play rehearsal that most of them had a part in. The kids ended up playing Rock Band (video game, which would be a nightly occurence) that night before we crashed for the evening in preparation for our first day on the National Mall.
No comments:
Post a Comment