Saturday morning, after some usual lazing around, Kelly and I headed down to Mount Vernon to visit the home of George Washington. It was a lot of fun. I’d never been down along the Potomac river in that direction and the drive itself was very pleasant, especially the farther south we got. A bike path follows the highway down and despite the cold temperatures, people were out biking and walking.
I’ve read numerous presidential biographies, but George Washington’s is one I have not yet read. That made it more interesting, because I was able to learn quite a bit about the man by wandering the grounds, the home, and the museums and education center.
The home itself is quite large, and much of it stands as it stood on the day Washington died back in 1799. During the 12 days of Christmas, they even open up the third floor of the home and so we got an opportunity to see that too, including the bedroom in which Martha Washington slept after George Washington died.
Both Kelly and I got very hungry wandering around the house and the grounds. We wandered past the old tomb and the new tomb of Washington. We passed by a tent which was providing warm apple cider and ginger crackers. Since we were famished, they were delicious. We made our way back to the food court and ate lunch there. Then we returned to the museum area and proceeded to make our way through the education center, including a rather cool movie about 3 of the battles of the Revolutionary War. The seats rattled when the cannons fired and snow fell from the ceiling when Washington crossed the Delaware river.
In the museum, I was fascinated by some of the letters they had, written by Washington. His handwriting was incredibly neat and legible!
We headed home late in the afternoon, making our way up to my house where we relaxed for a several hours, before deciding to go see a movie. We went to see the 7 PM showing of Juno, which turned out to be quite a good movie, funny and moving.
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