day two and three, part one

So, how do you describe the day from hell and still accentuate the positive? You DON'T!!

Here's how day two went...briefly. We started out at the Cracker Barrell for breakfast. Anyone who knows me knows I love that place. We didn't think a sit down breakfast would make us too late. And by itself, it wouldn't have.

Then the GPS thingy seemed not to be working (we figured it out later). We fiddled and fiddled with it. I was pretty obsessed with making an expensive toy work!

We spent another half hour at the Pfaltzgraff outlet store stocking up on replacement dishes for the set we have at home. Again, not all that bad of a time loss.

But Noah decided to come back from the dead and bring his flood with him! The rain poured and poured and poured. I was ready to kill something.

A 4 1/2 hour drive had turned into seven and we were still almost an hour from Mount Vernon. So......we got on the Beltway and headed for our motel and crashed. A motel room and bed never felt so good.

We did still have dinner with friends last night and it was great. Tree Hugger and I totally dominated the conversation (blabber mouths that we are), but our hosts were kind and listened. They were delightful and fed us well. We loved it. A good time was had by all.

Then this morning, we got up and headed for Mount Vernon anyway! We only spent two hours there, but still enjoyed it thoroughly. We didnt rush, but we didn't dawdle, either.

Since I discovered that I totally love colonial American history, I've read several books on the Founding Fathers....AND Founding Mothers. I'm into a Jefferson biography now, but I have plans to read one on General Washington, too. Martha Washington figured prominently in the Founding Mothers book, so seeing their home was great. I had seen it in the 70's and remembered virtually nothing. Both of us loved it.

We traveled all day on the Metro, DC's very excellent subway line, by the way.

After Mount Vernon, we went into down Washington to see some presidential and war memorials. As you can see from the pics, we only did General George and Honest Abe. We never even found the Jefferson Memorial. Oh, well.

The sun was out and we were soaking wet by the time the day was over. But I am ahead of myself. I shall post part two now with more pics and spew out some more stuff.