Sightseeing Weekend

I went to a couple of places this past weekend. The first was with Finn on an 8th grade field trip to Mount Vernon 

 

near Alexandria, VA, the home of President George Washington,

 

the father of our country.

It is an easy drive and I cannot believe we haven't visited sooner. Mount Vernon itself was sort of spartan. Impressive, but not fabulous. However, Washington was not a fancy man and it mirrored those sentiments. It was also sort of Williamsburgish in that it was real but obviously very repaired. I am fine with that, but it didn't have a super authentic feel to it. The views across the Potomac River were definitely stunning.

 

Nine boys and I walked all around the property and they seemed to enjoy themselves. I particularly liked Washington's tomb and was surprised to see that it was engraved with the title of General and not President.

 

It was also neat that there are two mini Washington monuments at the grave site.

 

I want to go back again to really look through the education center. The boys weren't so into that portion. I just won't go on a weekday in May with every other school group in the United States. I am thinking the day after Labor Day.

Then on Saturday, my Mom and I went on a bus trip to Wilmington, Delaware to see...

Nemours is the home of Alfred I. and Jessie du Pont. This place is also not too far away. The story of Alfred DuPont is very interesting and I do recommend the Wikipedia article link. His 77-room estate was amazingly impressive.

 

He also was humble man (although his house would have told a different story) and his charitable work is a wonderful legacy. His personal life was a bit wacky, but he was happy in the end. The tour guides sort of rushed us through and we had to drive around the gardens

which was a total bummer since it was an awesomely beautiful day, but it was probably better for all of the old ladies present.

 This statue cost $23,000 to repair and reapply the gold leaf!

One of the many hood ornaments from his six automobiles

This is a Cadillac beauty.

The reason we had to drive wasn't because of the old ladies though. It was because we were scheduled to have tea at the

in Wilmington proper. The hotel was a grand old hotel

and High Tea was delicious, although I have had better.

The dessert plate

 was just incredible for ONE person and there was no way I was finishing all of that after the sandwiches!

My Mom and I were stuffed, so we took a short walk around Wilmington before we had to catch the bus. The Wilmington Public Library has an impressive facade

and the Royal Opera House

was pretty. The church across the street had a nice bell tower

and the Trinity district looked promising, but we didn't have time to get there.

Today, on Mother's Day, I did pretty much nothing. Craig made dinner and he had to go into work today. Evan has his "applicant processing" tomorrow at Craig's work for his internship next fall so I am off to bed.