George Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon began as a one and one-half story farmhouse built in 1735 by his father, Augustine, and received its well-known name during the ownership of his half-brother Lawrence. George acquired Mount Vernon in 1754, and over the next 45 years slowly enlarged the dwelling to create the resplendent 21-room residence we see today.
Even though the concierge almost made me cry when we arrived
at our hotel at 11:40am by telling me the last shuttle to Mount Vernon had left
at 11am and there was no need for me to try to go on there for the afternoon,
we DID! I think he could see the tears welling up in
my eyes. See I had a very detailed
schedule of how we would see DC in 3 days and when he started telling me that
there was no need to try to get to Mount Vernon for the afternoon, my brain was
going crazy thinking about how my schedule was already going to be screwed
up. Anyway…. He finally suggested we
take the metro subway half way and then a taxi from there to get to Mount
Vernon. He said a taxi straight from
hotel to there would be around $60 bucks one way! UGH….. So of course we decided
to do the subway for 8 bucks!
Let’s just say the subway was a great big adventure!!!!! I
could write a book on what all happen to us at the subway, but I will spare you
the details. Just know this….. There is
NO ONE there to help you! You either figure it out on your own or you keep
stopping people until you get someone that can actually speak English to help
you. What a NIGHTMARE!
Talk about crowded! It was so hot and smelled badly.
Do we take red, yellow, blue or green....... OH MY
We arrived at Mount Vernon around 2pm. Yes, that’s a couple hours travel time from the hotel even though in a normal city it would take maybe 30-40 minutes. The subway took forever to figure out and
then the taxi ride from the half-way point to Mt. Vernon took a while even
though it was only like 15 miles.
Traffic in DC is CRAZY to say the least. It was
unseasonably hot! Everyone kept saying
they were having an “Indian Summer”. I
had no idea what that meant exactly. All
I knew was it was extremely HOT and HUMID.
If you’ve ever been to Mount Vernon, you do a lot of walking
and NOTHING is air conditioned. Well,
except for the gift shop and restaurant.
Mount Vernon is a beautiful place situated on the Potomac River. I could have really enjoyed it if it hadn't been so darn HOT. We did get a few minutes to sit
on the porch of the house which overlooks the river which is breathe taking. However, we didn’t get to sit long because
the place was so very crowded and other people were waiting their turn to sit
down. It was the only spot out of the
sun to rest a minute. Inside the house
we saw the bed that George & Martha shared.
After he died in that very same bed, she shut that room off and never slept
there again. His tomb is also on the
property. We were told that a couple of
times they were asked to moved his body to Washington but it was not what the
family wanted, so to this day George Washington is buried at Mount Vernon.
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| The porch that overlooks the river. Just look at all the people sitting on that porch. The front is not that pretty because they had scaffolds everywhere doing some repair work before winter. The picture at the beginning of the blog is from a brochure to give you an idea of what the house really looks like when not being repaired. |
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| The river |
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| George Washington's tomb |
Gary finally told me he was going back up to the gift shop
for the air conditioner and I could continue to walk around if I wanted too. So off he went and I’m walking around taking
in the sights and wondering why the heck I’m still walking in the heat when I see
this guy walking with a beer. So I stopped
him and asked where he got the cold beer.
He directed me to a bunch of white tents that were in this big field. There were tents selling all kinds of
stuff. Most of the stuff was reminders
of the past. There were a few modern tents
selling handmade soaps and lotions. The
last tent on the end had cold beer, water, and soft drinks. YIPPIE! I quickly grabbed two and went to find
Gary. I knew he would be excited for me
to bring him a cold beer. And since we
weren’t driving, we could actually have a beer.
I was so very glad I had made us early dinner reservations
at the Mount Vernon Inn because we didn’t have to leave and try to find
somewhere to eat on our first night in DC.
Plus we had been traveling since 4am and I knew we would want an early
supper so we could go to hotel and rest.
The Inn was attached to the gift shop which was perfect. We had a very nice supper. The food was great! The place was small and
quaint. We really enjoyed it and the AC. We decided not to do subway back to
hotel. We used my Uber app and got us a
taxi. It was much better than subway and
only cost us $12.99! We were ecstatic! Plus we were back in our room by 8pm and
in the bed. I don’t think we even
talked. We simply crashed! Travel days are hard! And we added sightseeing
into the travel day.
That's it for the first day of DC. :>)
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