This morning my family, along with Brett and Marie, headed to Mount Vernon. None of us had ever been here before. I loved it! It was a lot more amazing than I anticipated. First, it was beautiful. This is the view George Washington had from his house. No wonder he wanted to come back here!
View from George Washington's house
Maysen, Stephanie, Mike
Preston, Jorja, Stockton
With Marie
Dad & Brett
Stockton, Preston, Jorja, Mike, Maysen, Marie
We thought about taking a Behind the Scenes National Treasure Tour. It sounded pretty cool, but we didn't have much time, and that was a 60 minute tour. Instead we wandered around the grounds and the museum ourselves and took the mansion tour that comes with the tickets. The mansion tour was so cool! I'm glad we did that instead of the National Treasure one. They have pictures hanging on the wall that were hanging there when George Washington lived there. There is a key in a case hanging on the wall. George Washington hung that himself! It was the key to some prison in France that La Fayette gave to him. How cool is that? The chair that George Washington sat in while he was in office and the trunk he took with him to the Revolutionary War was there. Amazing! The bed he died in was there. We got to walk down the steps he would walk every morning. He would have to duck his head because it is a tight squeeze. We weren't allowed to take pictures in The Mansion or you would be seeing picture overload right now. It was plain awesome. I did feel bad for the Washingtons though. Back in that time period people could stop by and stay with the Washingtons. Anyone could, whether they knew the Washingtons or not. They could stay as long as they wanted. While they were there they would have free lodging, food and laundry. The Washingtons had so many visitors!
The grounds at Mt. Vernon
Apple trees ~ how cool that they are growing sideways!
Maysen put this picture on Instagram and it totally made me laugh. Her caption was: Famous people problems: Anything you say can and will be turned into a placard. Haha!
Can you imagine people riding down the street like this? It looks like something Mike would rig up.
We just missed watching them lay a wreath at George Washington's grave. They do this twice a day. We did get to see it with the gate open though.
Martha and George Washington's grave
Locking up the graves
Preston
There were a lot of people working at the slave graveyard. They are trying to use soil samples to figure where the different slaves are buried.
Next we walked down to the Potomac River and around the horse stables.....at a safe enough distance for Mike.
Stockton, Preston, Stephanie, Maysen, Mike, Jorja
We quickly went through the museum. Some more quickly than others. My dad went through pretty fast. He was more aware of the time frame than we were.
Replica of Martha Washington's wedding dress
Replica of her wedding shoes
George Washington's sword he took
with him to the French & Indian War.
Mike got a picture of George Washington's teeth. I forgot to get his pictures before I uploaded all of these. Maybe I'll put them on later.....maybe not.
We met Rachel at a freeway exit. She had picked up pizza for us that we were able to eat on the way to Gettysburg. That was perfect! Mina got in the motorhome with us and Rachel followed behind in their car with Grace.
Preston & Marie
We only had 45 minutes before we were scheduled to meet our tour guide. We went quickly through the museum. Perfect for my kids. I would have liked to spend more time. This flag flew during the civil war. I had never seen the stars arranged like that. During the civil war, the Union did not take the stars of the succeeding states off of the flag. I like that.
We met our guide. His name was Jim Miller. He rode in the motorhome with us as we drove around Gettysburg. Boy did he know his stuff! I had been to Gettysburg once before. We drove around the battlefields. At least I thought we did. I knew the battle was fought in the city, but I didn't have a concept as to how many battles and how large the fighting area was. There are several houses there that still have holes in their bricks from the battle. Crazy!
It was perfect to have the tour guide go with us. The little kids hung out in the back watching a movie. That made it bearable for them. Especially since our guide took an hour longer than was planned!
Brett & Grace
This next picture is a cannon that was here during the battle. The dent is where another cannon ball hit it.
Preston
I yelled BOOM! when Preston looked into the cannon. He did not jump like Matt years ago. I don't have as loud of a voice as Bubs, so that might be why.
Where the fighting on Day 1 took place
Marie, Maysen, Grace, Jorja, Stephanie
Dad, Stockton, Mike, Brett with Mina in front
We are at the 'eternal flame' or as our guide called it the 'internal flame'
Grace
Jim Miller ~ our VERY enthusiastic tour guide
We're glad he didn't have a heart attack while he was talking.
He would get so worked up. Pretty funny and impressive at the same time.
Different states have put up memorials all over the town. This might have been Kentucky, I know it was a Confederate state. Anyways they were similar to this one. The faces on this one are of boys who fought in this battle. I can't remember if they moved masks to get them right, but it's cool that you can see this is who actually fought the battle.
I'm guessing this is Virginia
because Lee is on the top.
Grace
I don't think I got any pictures of Day 2. The main fighting was in a orchard. Day 3 is Little Big Top. I'm sure there was fighting here before Day 3, but it's hard for me to keep track.
Day 3
There was a cool story about this guy. He rallied his troops with his wife's riding crop. Jim Miller talked a lot about him. He kept swinging it at the Texans who were attacking. After about the 6th time of him doing that he was shot and killed. I think this was carved on July 5th. His men carved this in the stone while they were still being fired at.
Pickett's Charge
We thought we would be finished with our tour at 5:15. We didn't finish until 6:15. The guide practically threw the information at us. I can't even remember a fraction. Rachel said she thought he must be an auctioneer on the weekends. We were planning on doing baptisms at the Washington D.C. temple. There was no way we could get there by 7:30, so that plan got scrapped. Brett and his family went home in one car. We drove hope separately. We stopped at Waffle House and caught up on our map.
Brett called us and told us there was a huge party going on at one of the houses. There were cars everywhere and nowhere for us to put our motorhome. We quickly made a new plan and found a Walmart to stay in. Brett came later to pick up my dad and take him to his house. Brett & Rachel had a flat tire and they wanted to use my dad's Triple A membership. Later Maysen told me that every time we said Triple A, she thought we were saying Chipole. When we said that because of my dad's membership Triple A would change the tire for free, Maysen was so confused!
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