We had a really busy day today. First off, we checked out of our “home” in Williamsburg a day early, before 8:00 AM. We decided to leave a day early because we wanted to see more things in the Washington DC area. We opted to get a hotel for the night (Priceline for under $70.00) in Rockville, Maryland, a Radisson. The weather was grey and a little chilly. We stopped at a 7-11 for coffee, and Subway for breakfast. before heading out of Williamsburg. The drive into Washington DC was almost 140 miles and a little over two hours.
We drove to the Woodlawn Mansion and got our tickets for the Pope-Leighey House, built by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1940’s. We figured if we could take a tour right away, it would work out great. If we couldn’t get a tour right away, we would just get the tickets ahead of time for a later tour after we toured Mt. Vernon (because we had already purchased our tickets for an 11:30 AM tour). We were able to get an immediate tour and we were the only people on the tour so it was great and we got special attention from Chris, our tour guide.
This particular home was designed to be for the “regular folks” and cost something like $7,000.00 when it was built. It’s been moved twice and the last time it was moved it cost over $750,000.00. It’s almost a tiny home, even though it has about 1,200 square feet. So lovely. Our tour guide, Chris, is a real Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) lover and has booked an overnight stay at a small Frank Lloyd Wright place in Wisconsin for her 60th birthday. How fun. Frank Lloyd Wright had such a vision and his ideas are brilliant! Loved the house for its usefulness and cuteness.
We left the Pope-Leighey House and headed a few miles down the road to Mount Vernon. Can’t believe all the people here today. You can tell it must be Spring break because lots of kids around.
We got through and watched a film about George Washington in the main entrance. Fascinating guy. Didn’t realize he never had kids of his own, just the two step kids from his wife, Martha. Also, they ended up raising two of her grandchildren. There was a very long line to go into the actual home. While waiting we got to talking to a really nice young couple from Texas. Made the time pass and had fun visiting.
The house was nice and had a spectacular view of the Potomac River. They wouldn’t let us take pictures inside the house, which was a bummer. Part of the tour showed us the bedroom and bed where George died at age 67 of a throat infection (probably due to his horrible teeth).
When we got through the home, we walked down to the tomb where George, Martha, and a bunch of his relatives are buried. While waiting in the short line to pay our respects, we heard some beautiful flute music and headed that way when we had finished at the tomb. The flute music was coming from the slave memorial and it was coming from a man dressed in period costume and playing a period flute. So neat!
We walked back up and around the farm and headed out. All exits lead through the gift shop. The whole estate is 8,000 acres and we felt like we walked most of it.
We took the George Washington Memorial Parkway (which is lovely) into Washington DC to see the Lincoln Memorial. While we were driving around we got to see a couple other things we hadn’t seen before, like the Peace Institute – which we could use right about now; and the Jefferson Memorial.
Just like Mount Vernon, Washington DC was packed. So many people. We saw the War Memorials and the Memorial Bridge, which we went over a few times.
We went back onto the Memorial bridge and headed into the Arlington National Cemetery. We were hoping to get there in time to watch the changing of the guards. We didn’t appreciate how huge the cemetery was. Mostly up hills. So massive.
Time was running out in getting to the changing of the guard, but we got to see Kennedy’s eternal flame, and then we headed to the Unknown Soldier and were able to see the ending of the changing of the guard.
We decided to wait for the next change and were pleasantly surprised in that they did something special and we got to see two processions where they change the flower arrangement and play taps. Beautiful.
We went into the memorial hall and looked around. Found out that the guard walks 21 steps, waits 21 seconds, and then walks again. It’s symbolic for the 21 gun salute.
By this time Michael and I were exhausted. We were so glad that the walk back to the car was downhill. Michael’s fitbit started going off – which means we had walked over the 10,000 steps – and we had many more to go.
We drove the George Washington Memorial Parkway again to our exit to get to Maryland (about 20 miles from the cemetery).
We got to the Radisson but drove around and found a place to have dinner before we checked in, a local Chipotle.
We discovered that this area is quite lovely. We checked into our room and it’s comfortable and spacious, plus the bed is very comfortable. Looking forward to sleeping in late.