Oct 4 Tuesday- Mt Vernon, DC, Alexandria

Having screwed up my days for the tours I signed up for, I realized that I had scheduled Mt Vernon and the White House on the same day- Wed. So, we did what we did for the Capitol tour, and just showed up at Mt Vernon Tuesday morning, hoping they wouldn’t notice that I was there on the wrong day….and no one batted an eye.

Mt. Vernon, if you didn’t know, was George Washington’s home. It’s about 15 miles south of DC perched on a hilltop overlooking the Potomac, and it is fantastic. The view of the river is incredible. It was still raining, but only off and on, and more lightly.

There is a type of inspirational connection felt with the ideals our country was founded on while visiting these places where those ideals first found political viability. Knowing that the founding fathers themselves visited these rooms, that Washington lived here, gives one a palpable sense of connection.

You feel inspired to live up to those ideals, and it makes you proud to identify with them. There is a small museum close by that gives more information.

After that we drove back to the hotel then took the subway into DC to see the western half of the national mall. We saw Washington monument,

the WWII memorial,

the Korean War memorial,

the long reflecting pool,

the Lincoln memorial,

and the Vietnam War memorial.

Then in the afternoon, we drove to the US Patent Office, because I work for an intellectual property law firm, and visited the National Inventors’ Hall of Fame.

Because we aren’t as young as we used to be, so much walking was beginning to wear us down. We gladly knocked off a little early to go get some food at Carlyle’s, a different restaurant in that same hipster area in Alexandria.