A Day With George and Martha

After eating lunch on the bus at 10 a.m., we arrived at Mt. Vernon and started our day. The sun was blistering hot but occasionally we had a nice breeze come by to cool us off.

Maggie and I walked around with her friend, Autumn, and her mother. We started off with the mansion, made our way down to the smokehouse, the wash house, the stables and then down to the wharf. It was very breezy down by the water and it really felt good. Walking uphill back to the mansion took every bit of left-over energy I had. Maggie and Autumn suggested we sit on a bench for a rest and I was quite happy to oblige.

We went to the museum and looked at all the displays. I was surprised that 2nd graders would find it interesting. The "movie" was great. When the cannons erupted with a bang and great clouds of cannon smoke rose on the movie screen, our seats rumbled and "smoke" rose from the floor in front of the screen. When it was snowing (on Christmas Day while sneaking up on the Hessians), snow came falling down from the ceiling and we were covered with it! Very realistic! I think the "snow" was some type of soapy stuff that looked like flakes when they were falling, but appeared to be bubbles when they landed on us. The girls were thrilled.

We left the museum and finally walked into the gift shop. I'm not thrilled with the new gift shop. It's too commercialized. The old shop up by the mansion is more to my liking. Anywho, Maggie was anxious to buy something. Anything. It didn't have to have anything to do with George and Martha. It just had to be something! She finally settled on two enormous lollypops with George's face on them. $4.50 each. Each!! Glad it was her money and not mine.

We left there and went back up to walk in the gardens. I wanted to show her where her Popie used to sneak into the vegetable gardens to raid the strawberry patch and to "swim" in the reservoirs. He had to have had a magical childhood, living there. Sometimes I envy that.

After that, she and Autumn were losing steam. It was almost time to leave, but we had time for one more treat - ice cream. There's a huge food court down next to the gift shops. That's another thing I don't like. The Tea Room is too expensive, so they have pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, ice cream and some other overpriced concessions in the food court. It's all too expensive, if you ask me. $4.50 for a lollypop? Get real!

We relaxed in the shade outside the Tea Room waiting for the others to gather before we made the trek back to the buses. Once we were loaded up, we took off for home arriving at 4:20. I really thought the kids would be exhausted and maybe they would even fall asleep on the way home.

No such luck. They were noisier than when we left in the morning.