Monday - August 25

What a wonderful, glorious, fun day!!!    Perfect weather and the thrill of waking up and exercising in front of Mount Vernon was extra special!   

 

 Early-morning sun shining on Mount Vernon as we lifted those weights!

 

After breakfast, we took the dinghy to the wharf where boats can tie up and where the tour boats come in.    Not that long ago, folks in their private boats could tie up and just pay price of admission.   Times have changed and they now charge $2 per foot just for the privilege of being there + the price of admission on top.    It would've cost us $68 for Catrina + $17 each for tour.   There was no one around at the wharf, no tour boats come in on Mondays, so.....just had to pay admission fee.

 

After watching a brief orientation video, we walked to the house for the tour and how neat to come out of the house onto the porch and tah dah.....there was Catrina!

Catrina bobbing on the Potomac in front of Mount Vernon

College students digging for artifacts

Pretty gardens

 

Great memory

We spent almost 4 hours walking around with our audio sets and soaked up all this wonderful history.   Not a very large group touring today, but still a lot of children (some schools out east start after Labor Day - of course, have no idea where these kiddies were all from?)   The Donald Reynolds Museum was excellent, too, and we learned so much about George and Martha.   We left this beautiful historic area and cruised 16 miles to Washington, DC.    Along the way, there were several very large mansions with rolling lawns that looked like velvet!    We cruised past a Naval Research Center, Alexandria, etc.  Yesterday, we passed the Qauntico Marine Base.  So neat to have the nation's capital and Washington Monument come into view - a whole different perspective than from land!

 

We are docked at the Capital Yacht Club in the heart of DC.....our dockhand who helped us tie up is from Rockford, IL AND.......had Mark's sister Janet as a teacher back in 2002-03 when she taught summer school classes at a junior college!    SMALL world.   He remembers her as an excellent teacher who made learning, "FUN" and also that she really enjoyed wine!   HA....that's Janet!   Looking forward to tomorrow night when we meet Tom (Janet's son and our nephew) who lives in Arlington, VA.

 

We gave Catrina a good scrubbing and then walked up to the Yacht Club, did 2 loads of laundry, and had a drink in the bar.    Met some nice folks - Phil and Monica who are liveaboards at the marina (along with 60 other boats - wow)!    They home school their 10-year old daughter.

 

Reagan Airport is very near us.   Can only imagine what George and Martha would think about all these planes flying overhead, the technology that now is at our fingertips and on and on......today was just a wonderful educational experience!

View of Mount Vernon at night

 

We have been so blessed with nice weather - normally this time of year, the Chesapeake and Potomac areas are sweltering, but they are all loving these cooler, very pleasant days and nights!    We know how HOT it is back home and heading this way later this week!

 

Our little Connor has been sick with a fever and sore throat - fortunately, he does not have strep, but some ole bug is lurking around!

 

Ready to take on the sites tomorrow in our nation's capital!