Mount Vernon

We took a Sunday afternoon to visit Mount Vernon, the historic estate of George Washington, and it was a marvelous day! We were pleasantly surprised at what a neat place that was to visit and how well-maintained it was. A lot of time and effort has been put into making this a really great place to visit!

Elias posing with statues of George and Martha, and Martha's two children:

Mount Vernon was a productive farm, and there are some great models of what it used to be like. Elias loved the animals!

They had a reproduction of the way the Washingtons used to thresh wheat. They would trot their horses around this circular building, and the wheat grains would fall through small slits in the floor, while the larger hay was kept above. Cool!


There is a marina there that also has a boat tour, but we didn't have a chance to do the boat tour... Next time!
 Mount Vernon also houses the tomb of George Washington.

The estate had delightful gardens, both for flowers and fruits and vegetables.
 


The home is beautiful and remarkably well-kept! Pictures are not allowed inside, but we were able to go in and see it. They still have the bed that George Washington died in there in his room; it was an impressive sight.

There is a large museum as well, with a lot of educational information about Washington and his life. Below is a reproduction of him taking his oath of office as president. There were also several educational films. One of them was about the major battles that Washington led as a General in the Revolutionary War, and the theater they show the film in is amazing! The seats vibrate to the sound of canon fire, and they actually have it "snow" in the theater to help put you in the setting when Washington was doing his famous Crossing of the Delaware. It was awesome!
Elias loved the gift shop, including this display where you can buy stuffed animals of all the presidential pets throughout history. We had to take a picture of the list because that was cool!
What a very special experience, and I'm grateful we went.

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