Where George Washington is Buried

After our morning at the Natural History Museum in D.C., we jumped in the car and headed just a short drive south to Mount Vernon. A few weeks before the trip, Dylan had asked where George Washington was buried (remember, this is the guy obsessed with spooky stuff like gravestones). I didn't know so I looked it up. When I realized it was right by where we were going to start off our vacation, I knew we had to add George Washington's home and final resting place to our trip. Luckily, after our late night of traveling the day before and a busy morning, both boys fell asleep on the ride there so we hung out in the parking lot for a while and let them snooze.

Once everyone awoke, we started our trek of the grounds. We walked a bit, saw some animals, witnessed some old fashion sheep shearing and read some interesting facts about our nation's first president, George Washington.

Then we made our way over to George's crypt. Every day, there's a ceremony there at 11 and 3. We timed our schedule that day around making it to the 3 o'clock ceremony and it worked out quite nicely. The ceremony included putting a wreath in between George and Martha's coffins, a reading of his prayer (which I can't remember is his Earnest Prayer or a Prayer for Guidance...either way, I found it really moving) and the group saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I must admit, it was very (surprisingly) emotional and powerful to recite the pledge, hand over heart, just feet away from a man that was an extremely pivotal person in making this country what it is today. I may have even gotten a little choked up!

After the ceremony, we continued to tour the estate (or as Dylan likes to call it, George Washington's city). Then we made our way up to the house. When we bought our tickets, we were assigned a time that we could get in line for the house tour. Since the line was long, Mike held our spot and the boys and I wandered around a bit. But, being the well oiled tourist machine that it was, the line moved pretty quickly. The house tour was nice but not quite as informative as I think I would have preferred. You were pretty much shuffled through, had guides in each room there for questions and occasional they would announce some pertinent info on their area of the house. However, for being able to do this with 2 small boys, I don't think any other fashion of tour could have worked any better.

The Mansion

Fantastic View of the Potomac from the Back Porch

We then made our way to the museum where we saw a recommended movie about some of Washington's pivotal battles. Dylan's favorite spot was a set up of the inside of a bunker with a sleeping man in it and a video of troops training on the lawn outside the window. We had to circle back to see the sleeping man a few times.

After a few hours spent there, we got in the car for the 2 hour trip down to Williamsburg where we would stay for the remainder of our trip. It had been a long 24 hours and it seemed we'd never get to the condo. We stopped for dinner, the grocery store, the gas station, and CVS before we made our last stop at check in. It had been a long day and we were all ready to get a good night's sleep.

The Boys at Dinner
Dylan was wearing his new "George Washington" hat.