Mount Vernon was next on our “must see” list so that was our destination as we headed out on Tuesday. Caught the Metro out to the end of the line, then caught a bus on to Mt Vernon. We arrived just in time for lunch, so we first dined in the Mount Vernon Inn, where we had a distinctly Southern lunch, including fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits. The grits are actually made from corn meal ground at the Mount Vernon mill. It was all quite good.
Main house at Mount Vernon.
Our visit to Mount Vernon started with a guided tour of the house itself, which has been furnished as it was at the time that George Washington died. When Washington took over what was his family home, he expanded it with a second floor. The original house was modest in size, although large for the times. The second floor included what became George and Martha’s bedroom along with some more guest bedrooms. A third addition to the house added wings onto the main floor. The house had nine guest bedrooms, although they were all fairly modest. Apparently the Washington’s never turned away a guest, invited or not, and were too gracious to tell anyone their time was up. In 1798 (the year before GW died), they hosted over 600 guests. We have to wonder if that was what REALLY killed him.
It was easy to understand why Washington loved it so much at Mount Vernon. The setting and grounds are absolutely beautiful, and the view from George and Martha’s back porch is stunning, and also very soothing. Mike had not realized before that Mount Vernon is on the banks of the Potomac. The view out over the river is stunning.
View of the Potomac from the back porch.
We enjoyed poking around the various out buildings that supported the large and prosperous farm. These included the stables, laundry, kitchens, other support buildings, and of course, the slave quarters. The farm could not be so prosperous without all the hard work of the slaves. It was interesting that the ownership of the slaves was divided between George and Martha.
Carriage like George Washington had.
Several broken milling wheels from the grist mill were re-used as steps.
Mike of course liked the smokehouse.
Blacksmith at Mount Vernon.
We were amused by the graduate students working on an archaeology project near the main house. While normally they would be working very carefully with brushes and trowels, when we came by they were throwing shovel fulls of dirt out of a large hole into wheel barrows! NOT good archaeology practice. The guide explained that the archaeologists had been asked to dig a hole for some water pipes while they were excavating.
Archaeology?
Our next stop was Alexandria, Virginia. We just had to take the bus back to the Metro station and get off at the Alexandria stop. So we got to the bus stop just in time to see a bus pulling up. It was not the same number as the one we took to get there, the 101, but the driver assured us that it went to the Metro station. At the next stop another fellow got on and was asking if the 101 was right behind him. The driver didn’t know, so the guy got on anyway, but sure seemed to want that 101. We soon found out why as we noticed our bus not only taking a different route back, but also making numerous turns in the route to enter side streets and essentially go in circles. We were on the ultimate milk run. Mike eventually got out his iPad with the GPS maps to follow our serpentine route. We started making bets on whether the bus would turn left or right at the next stop because it sure wasn’t going to go straight! At one point the bus actually pulled into an apartment complex parking lot and made not just one, but two stops within the parking lot. We sure got a tour of, well, somewhere!
Loved the official Kiss & Ride lots at the metro stations.
We did finally get back to the Metro station and found our way to Alexandria, which is a nice town of old historic buildings with many restaurants and numerous shops. Not as many galleries as we expected, but we enjoyed strolling the Main Street and debating the dinner choices. Local seafood won and Tami enjoyed an oyster po’ boy and lobster bisque. Mike chowed down on a simple but wonderful bowl full of blue crab chunks in a butter sauce.
Parked (hitched?) along the street in Alexandria.
Reminded us of the Majestic Bay Theater in Ballard.
Cobbled street in Alexandria – even rougher than it looks!
Stepping outside, we were treated to an east coast downpour. The weather has been very warm, in the lower 70’s, so we were certainly not prepared for rain. There was a handy ice cream shop to take immediate cover and, well, you have to buy something, don’t you?
On Wednesday, with only a half day for touristing (Mike has to finally get down to Board business), we decided to visit the National Building Museum. No, we had never heard of it before, either, but the guy at the bike shop had recommended it highly so off we went.
While waiting for it to open we spotted the GAO building across the street, so Tami went over to take some pictures. After she had taken a few, she got chased away by a guard who told her she should not be taking close up pictures of government buildings like that. It still seems odd to have restrictions on taking pictures of all those really cool buildings which are on every street around here. We thought Keenan would like these though:
Entrance to the GAO (Government Accountability Office)
Bas relief on the outside of the GAO
It used to be called the Pension Building and was built following the Civil War by a former army quartermaster by the name of Meigs to serve the needs of the Union veterans. He designed it specifically with the veterans in mind as the doorways are all extra wide to accommodate wheelchairs and the staircases have steps that are very deep and shallow so that crutches could be used easily on them. The frieze around the outside is all scenes from the civil war.
Interior of the National Building Museum
Stepping inside, one is overwhelmed by the spaciousness of the building and the massive and ornate columns that rise to the ceiling many stories above. Apparently it is frequently used to host large balls and special events, and understandably so. It is absolutely beautiful inside.
There were several interesting exhibits including one called Scaling Washington, a photo exhibition on the uses of rock climbing gear and scaffolding to repair earthquake damage to the Washington Monument and National Cathedral (much more fascinating than it sounds, particularly the close up photos of climbers hanging from ropes far above the city), House & Home, on shapes our homes take (evolution of building techniques) as well as the things we keep in them, and Cool and Collected, an exhibit of various recent acquisitions. Much of that exhibit featured models and pictures from the work of the sculptor who designed both the DC WWII Memorial as well as Portlandia, a huge sculpture on the outside of one of the public buildings in Portland (that we saw on our Segway tour last January).
School children building a geodesic dome in the National Building Museum
The museum also has an excellent gift shop full of items of intriguing engineering design, others inspired by great architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, and a huge book collection pertaining to buildings and architecture. Apparently the gift shop has been listed by many sites as one of the best museum gift shops around. The museum is truly a hidden gem among many great museums in this city.
Today’s lunch was a dim sum restaurant called Ping Pong that was really a modern take on traditional dim sum. While they did not have Tami’s favorite rice noodle dish that she can never remember the name of (she calls it slimy noodles), we did thoroughly enjoy their modern version of dim sum and we once again ate more than we should have.
We returned to our room in time to have a quick chat with Keenan and hear more about his explorations in Gothenburg. The connection was iffy so we are even more anxious to see him in person and get the full scoop. He is clearly having a wonderful time.
Poor Mike had to go off to the Board meeting, so Tami headed out to the International Spy Museum. It is actually quite a large museum/tourist attraction that covers all aspects of covert actions from early days such as Caesar and George Washington to the more obvious Cold War days and beyond. There were extensive exhibits on tools of the trade, World War II efforts, and many other subjects. It ended with quite a large exhibit on all the evil nemeses from all the Bond movies. Did you know that Ian Fleming took the name for his hero from the author of a bird book he had on his book shelf? He thought it the most unimaginably dull name ever, though it has come to mean just the opposite.