Washington DC – Day 5

Day 5 – Sunday

Mount Vernon

We took a day trip out to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate.  There is a lot to do and see here, so it makes for a nice trip outside of the city.  Aside from having the worst food in our entire trip, it was really quite a pleasant place.  It was about 5-10 degrees cooler than the city, and the view of the Potomac from Washington’s front porch is absolutely breathtaking.  I could sit there for days!

I could get used to this porch sitting thing!

There was one artifact featured there which caught my attention, the a key to the Bastille that the Marquis de Lafayette gave to Washington on one of his many visits to Mount Vernon.  It was just hanging on the wall in the house, like it was no big deal.

The saddest thing about the story of Mt Vernon is that Washington spent so little time here.  He really only  enjoyed it for a couple years of his adult life.  He was always called away from his home to serve his country.  He only was able to enjoy his retirement at Mount Vernon for 2 years after his Presidency concluded.

One of the nice things about Mt Vernon was the staff there.  You have to pay to get in, but the staff on the grounds are very knowledgeable and committed to the estate.  My favorite were these random colonial folk we would run into.  Some were ‘house servants’ while others worked on the farming portion of Mt Vernon.

This guy had a good time telling dumb jokes to kids.  Seems like a dream job for a theatre major.

And who knew we’d run into my Brother Ben there?

Pentagon Memorial

This 9/11 memorial opened just this year, and by sheer luck we decided to visit this memorial at dusk, which turns out to be the perfect time to visit.

Each bench represents a person who died in the attack.

The person’s name is featured on the end of the bench, while their family’s names are inscribed in the water underneath the bench.

The benches are arranged in lines according to the birth year of the victim, the lines form a bell curve and points in the angle at which the plane crashed into the Pentagon.  The youngest victim was only 3 years old, while the oldest was 71.

Go America!