Washington DC

We spent two days visiting Washington DC on our family vacation back east in 1971, but it wasn't long enough to see everything.  What a fascinating place that was. 

On the first day we went to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington Finally I got to go inside an actual mansion, and boy, was it neat!  I loved the gardens and grounds, they were cool and green and beautiful, stretching all the way down to the Potomac River.  I loved walking through the well laid out gardens and out buildings.  I could almost imagine I had stepped back in time to 1776, and that George or Martha Washington would come walking through a gate at any minute. 

I was a little surprised when we went into the house to discover how small everything was.  The furniture, and especially the beds, were pretty dinky compared to what we have now-a-days.  The tour guide explained that in general people were smaller two hundred years ago, so it made sense that their homes and furnishings were built to suit them, but it still surprised me.

All of the furniture in Mount Vernon was authentic, and most of it was the actual furniture used by the Washington’s.  It was amazing to look at the desk where President Washington sat and see his personal belongings lying there.  Again, it felt as if he could walk into the room at any moment.  Everything was gorgeous, but what made my heart stop was the real harpsichord standing in the music room.  Ever since reading "The Middle Window" I had dreamt of owning a harpsichord, but I'd never even seen a picture of one.  I've got to admit it looked a bit different than what I'd imagined, it certainly wasn't as pretty as a piano, it was more of a glorified rectangular box on legs, but still, it was a real harpsichord!

We spent the next day touring down-town Washington.  It was lovely and cool compared to the weather we'd experienced earlier on the trip, although it was a bit windy, but I didn't mind.  We began our day at the White House because we'd heard it was hard to get inside.  We had to wait in line for a couple of hours, longer than waiting for rides at Disneyland, but the tour took longer than a ride, so it was OK.  I'd brought my copy of "Gone with the Wind" to read while I waited, and that helped keep me occupied.  I don't know how mom and dad managed to keep their cool while they tried to help six year old Julie and four year old Sharon remain calm.  Eventually we made our way down Pennsylvania Avenue, then up to the front gates of the White House.  They had a security check point set up there to search purses and back-packs before they were allowed on the grounds.  We weren't used to being searched back in those days, so it was exciting to watch mom turn out the bag she was carrying snacks and water in to keep the little girls happy.  I was really surprised, though, when the guard asked me to hand over my book.  What on earth did he think I was going to do with it?  Hit the President over the head or something?  But he didn't keep it.  He just opened it up to see if I'd hollowed the inside out to hide a gun.  Cool!  Of course, "Gone with the Wind" is such a big book it probably would have been a good place to hide a weapon.  The White House was awesome!  It was huge, and rich, and much more modern than Mount Vernon.

Later we road up to the top of the Washington Monument in an elevator, mom got kind of sick, and Linda and Phillip took the stairs down.  They thought they could beat the rest of us on the elevator, but not quite, although they did make the descent in about eight minutes.

We drove by the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, but didn't stop to go in to them.  We did go into Arlington National Cemetery, and visited the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and President Kennedy's grave.  We stayed long enough to watch the changing of the guard, and as we left Keith commented, "This was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."  He was 16, and kind of full of himself.

We went through guite a few of the Smithsonian Institute buildings, but there wasn't time to see them all.  The exhibits were really cool, though.  I was fascinated with the display of inauguration gowns worn by all the first ladies, and the antique jewelry on display. 

Last of all we went to see the Capitol, but discovered it had already closed for the day.  We sat on the front steps, though, and waited for dad to go get the camper and pick us up.  While we sat there we looked up and admired the statue on top of the capital, guessing what it could be.  It looked a lot like an Indian, but we couldn't figure out why that would be on top of the capitol.  Later we found out it was called "Freedom."

On the way back to the KOA to camp that night we passed the Pentagon, so we figured we had seen pretty much all that was noteworthy in Washington DC.