D.C. - Day 3 - Mount Vernon

Originally our plan was to go back to the Smithsonian today to look at the museums that we didn't get a chance to get to yesterday. But neither Dean nor I were in the mood when we got up this morning. So instead we drove down to Mount Vernon to see Washington's mansion.

The grounds are huge, starting with the "Ford Orientation Center" building, a complex of buildings housing museum/shops/Inn/Restaurant, Donald Reynolds Education Center, and then the mansion estate proper which included several buildings: the mansion, slave quarters, greenhouse, salt house, gardener's house, servant's hall, kitchen, smokehouse, laundry building and stable. There was also a wharf (Mount Vernon overlooks the Potomac river), 3 outdoor "necessaries," Washington family tomb, slave burial ground, and an upper and lower garden.

When we arrived at the Ford Orientation Center, we watched a 5-minute orientation video narrated by Pat Sajak, and then a 20-minute action film documenting Washington's life. The film, like the rest of Mount Vernon, portrayed a very idealistic, practically mythological person. Indeed, a person who was never afraid and never aged, looking the same at age 20 as at age 60, with hardly a wrinkle anywhere.

After the movie, we toured the gardens, which were very impressive, very formal English style (designed by Washington despite having never seen an English garden). Then we took a guided tour of the mansion. We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the mansion, which disappointed me. Most of the things in the mansion are originals, including things like their table china and the first presidential chair (which looked like a crappy common office chair). The decor was opulent for the time -- fine china, mahogany, and bright paint (apparently bright colors were very aristocratic because the paint was expensive). Some of the rooms were painted bright forest green, another a bright cornflower blue, another a bright yellow. Chic for the period, but positively ugly now. All the rooms except for the large dining room were roped off so that you could not enter them. We were forced to peer in through doorways from the halls, which limited the appeal for me. Despite being 9,000 square feet, the mansion seemed to be actually quite small. Perhaps that's because of the limited space we were allowed to go in or perhaps the layout of the space (lots of small rooms instead of fewer large rooms).

On the grounds they had gardeners and caretakers taking care of live animals like cows, goats and rams, and they had a few people in period dress "acting" (no acting slaves though...).

After the tour we went onto the grounds and went through several of the buildings. Afterwards, we had lunch in the food court. After lunch we toured the museum -- again, no pictures permitted. Quite a variety of original paintings of Washington, a few busts, original documents, clothing, ornamental swords, and a variety of personal effects. After that we went to the shops. Of course there was everything there from china to books, dvds, silver spoons, ornaments, etc. Nothing really caught our eye, so we bought nothing except our usual magnet.

After driving home, we took a brief nap and then had dinner at a wonderful Chinese restaurant called Gourmet Chinese Restaurant (ha!). Quite tasty. Dean had sesame shrimp and I had "four delight" -- shrimp, scallops, beef and chicken with celery, shitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots in a rich thick brown sauce. Delightful! And good service too. We're definitely going back.

On the way back from dinner, Dean wanted to stop at the Target across the street from the hotel to buy some new shoes. That didn't take long, but once we got out of the Target, it was the middle of rush hour, and owing to the traffic, one-way street design, and the convergence of 3 highways at the intersection, it took at least 20 minutes or longer to manage to get across the street back home. It was very exasperating. We waited for 3 changes of light without any cars being able to move at all. Now we're home and Dean is loving his new shoes and I'm getting ready to watch some t.v.

The mansion

The stained glass above is from the Ford Orientation Center.