The Mt. Vernon Experience

This weekend Ramya and I decided to do something touristy, but we wanted to see something neither of us had seen before. After batting around several ideas, we realized that neither of us had ever been to Mt. Vernon, home of America's first president. I have to say, it was actually pretty sweet!Not only is it the house (partially restored, partially original) and surrounding gardens, but there are couple of brand new attractions, including a visitor's center and museum. The site does say that they encompass 25 galleries and theatres, and there had to be at least that many. The main attraction in the visitor's center is billed as "a major movie" about George Washington. The really took this seriously- there are signs everywhere warning you that the film may not be suitable for children, and it contains scenes of a graphic nature, etc. The guy who let us into the theatre made an announcement that you are free to take your children out at any time. Then we were shown a five-minute overview of Mt. Vernon (hosted by none other than Pat Sajak), then a video warning that this movie might be too violent for some viewers. And they weren't kidding- this movie had it all: graphic bullet wounds, blood spatters, soldiers dying of a combination of tuberculosis and a tomahawk to the head- it probably couldn't be shown on an over the air broadcast. Which is to say that it was awesome. Right now Facebook has an application that lets you rank the top ten movies of the summer, and Ramya said if the Mt. Vernon intro movie was an option she would've given it at least the number two spot (it at least beat the heck out of Pirates of the Caribbean 3).

Startling intro movies aside, the only other things the welcome center had to offer was a Statue, a model of the main house, and $3 bottles of official Mt. Vernon water. To expand, here's the statue, which made us wonder why the kids seemed so young- Ramya's theory is that they weren't really his kids; they were models brought in for the statue op. Turns out that Martha Washington had two children from a previous marriage, and George never had any biological children (that we know about). When Martha's son died, she and George raised his children as their own, hence the age gap. See? Live and learn. The model was pretty neat, but I never understood the whole "let's look at a model when the real thing is 100 yards away" deal. Apparently this is especially evident at the ruins of Chichen Itza, where the models in the visitor's center are protected by armed guards while you're allowed to climb unsupervised all over the real things. Anyway, the purpose of the model became clear when the roof motored up so you could peer into the third floor, which is closed to visitors. There were little mirrors hanging on the ceiling which let you see it from all angles, and prompted Ramya to say "Oh man, George was a pimp!" I have nothing to add about the water, other than that there were 3 big vending machines, and all that was in them was the one type of bottled water. I am now lamenting the fact that we didn't take a picture pretending that we were trying to decide what to get, because that idea had some potential.
After that was the tour of the house itself, which is beautifully restored. It's all staffed by very enthusiastic employees who give their spiel as you walk through (over and over, God bless 'em) and answer any questions. It is pretty neat when they point out original parts of the house, especially when they say thing like "You are now using the exact same handrail that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry used." They've even gone so far as to limit development on the Potomac, to preserve the view from the porch exactly as it was in Washington's time (which you can kind of see in the picture above). There are several other buildings on the estate that have been restored, all littered with little informational placards like this one from the Clerk's Quarters:I show you this to point out that each little placard starts with a relevant quote from George himself. This is all well and good, but check out the one from the paint cellar:Was that really necessary? I said that I was surprised there wasn't a placard on his sock drawer that said something like "Ensure that both my blue and black socks are properly matched, for I cannot differentiate them in the early morn..." There's plenty of other things to see, including the Washington's tomb, wharf, and a monument to the African-American laborers (not that it evens the score, but I'm glad to see they acknowledge slavery). We wanted to do the forest nature trail, but honestly, we ran out of time. This was the opposite of the typical museum trip I take: instead of blowing through the whole thing and wondering what to do next, there was a lot more to see than we planned on, and we had to skip some stuff to fit in the museum before closing.

Now, they went all out on the museum. Not only did they have genuine artifacts and antiques, but there were several current and high-tech attractions, like interactive multi-media exhibits. There were several short films, ranging from little History channel clips to full on Disney-like immersive theatres. One had several high definition screens, filled with fog during the crossing of the Delaware, and during a winter battle scene kicked out little tiny bubbles that looked like snow (but did NOT taste like it).

As we approached the section on George's dental health (there was more detail than you ever wanted to know- suffice to say that the poor guy had some bad teeth) I dazzled Ramya with my trivia knowledge by asking her who made his false teeth. The answer, of course, being Paul Revere. But throughout the whole exhibit, there was no mention of America's favorite silversmith/dentist. Knowing that I didn't make that up myself, I did a very thorough Googleing to find that apparently this was a popular myth. I feel like I've been living a lie.

I guess my point is that if you come to visit me, and we can't think of anything to do around here that we haven't already done, I'm totally going to take you to Mt. Vernon. If you want to see the rest of our pictures, you can head on over to good old Wal-mart.