I know you've all been on the edge of your seat, waiting to hear about my 3rd day in D.C. for a girls-only weekend. Sorry to keep you on edge for so long! ha.
Anyway, we went to Mt. Vernon to visit the home of George Washington, of course. It was really interesting. I learned lots of things about ol' George that I never knew. Like first and foremost, he considered himself a farmer above all else. He ran a HUGE plantation (they didn't call it a plantation, they called it a farm, but it was a huge farm run by mostly slaves so, to me, it's a plantation) and personally oversaw the interior design and decor in his whole house...even the paint colors for the walls. He let Martha decorate one room only, their bedroom, which I noted was stark white and sparsely furnished. We got to see the actual bed they slept in and that he died in, etc. He was very much about "appearances" since he had many dignitaries visiting his home, etc. When you look at the picture of the exterior of Mt. Vernon, it looks like white brick, right? It's actually all made of wood. George had each piece of wood individually cut to look like a brick. Then they painted it white, threw some sand on it to make it rough, and painted it again. Each piece was applied to make the whole house look like a brick house. And apparently the layers of paint and sand helped preserve the house for I don't remember how many many years now. The backside overlooks the Potomac river which is wide and beautiful. Anyhoo, it was a very fun excursion. Us girls had a great time in the gift shop, too. I bought some cherry preserves (from the tree young George chopped down?) which were delicious on my first piece of bread and then one of the kids accidentally dropped the glass jar and smashed all over the tile floor. :-( I also bought a bottle of "mulled cider". Apparently it was so popular with the Washingtons at Mt. Vernon that they once ordered over 400 gallons of it for one winter. I thought it would just taste like the apple cider we used to get in Michigan. It was very different. It was slightly carbonated and, I swear, it tasted like I was drinking an apple cobbler. It was SO good! Dave and I didn't share it with the kids at all and we were both licking the bottom of our glasses when it was gone. I really wish I had bought 400 gallons!
Later that day, we spent time in more great restaurants, shopping, and then we went to see the monuments at night. My favorite is always the Lincoln memorial at night. Ol' Abe looks so big sitting there in his huge chair. We also saw the Vietnam memorial, Korean memorial, and the new FDR memorial. I didn't even know there was a FDR memorial. Maybe it's not even new, it's just new to me! Anyway, it was not well-lit at night, but I was very impressed with it overall. It was much bigger and more extensive than I would've imagined. Can't really explain it...you just have to go see it for yourself! We finished out the day with french fries and chocolate shakes (in our pajamas) so what can be better than that! AND I didn't have to share my chocolate shake with anybody. (Nichole and I DID share the fries but she didn't shovel them down so it was okay. We're still friends).
That pretty much wraps up our trip. I took an eternal (bad traffic) bus ride back to NYC while I worried the whole way that the guy that loaded my luggage probably took it off the bus after I got on and left it sitting on the sidewalk in D.C. because I forgot to tip him. (Okay, I didn't actually forget, I just didn't like that he personally REMINDED me to tip him and the lowest bill I had was a $20)!
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