We spent the day at George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, in Alexandria, VA. This was my third visit to Mount Vernon and Rick's first. Since my last visit which was about 15 years ago, they have added two wonderful new museums: one with artifacts and original art, the other with exhibits about the man, his life, and his presidency. When we gushed in this blog about the Lincoln Museum in Springfield last year, we didn't know that it was not unique. It seems to be the wave of the future to create these very modern "immersive" historical museums which do a fabulous job of presenting what might otherwise be dry material. Mount Vernon's Reynolds Center and the Marine Corps Museum that we saw yesterday are both equally impressive as the Lincoln Museum was last year.
I complained yesterday about the tax dollars that have been spent at the Marine Corps Museum. By contrast, I have always loved the fact that Mount Vernon is run by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The Mount Vernon Ladies purchased the property from the Washington family in 1858 and have owned and run it ever since. No taxpayer money has ever been used to support the estate or its programs. Sure, they have received major grants from the Ford Foundation and Donald W. Reynolds, but most of their money comes from fundraising and the $15 per person admission price.
If you ever get the chance to visit Mount Vernon, I highly recommend it. But I also highly recommend that you don't see it in May. We arrived this morning just before 9am to a back up of vehicles entering Mount Vernon. There was bus after bus of school children. We stopped counting at 50 buses! I'm not kidding! The little monsters were EVERYWHERE, setting off the sensor alarms at the exhibits, talking during the films, and generally being a nuisance. The food court was mobbed. We were told that May is THE month for school trips to DC. We still really enjoyed the museums, but the mansion was so crowded that it was hard to enjoy. They moved you through so quickly that there was no time to ask any questions of the docents.
We had dinner with David Boaz, an old friend of mine from college days and his partner Steve. David and I met at a Young Americans for Freedom convention while I was a student at George Washington and he was at Vanderbilt. We were both involved with various libertarian causes, and became good friends. David went on to become Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute. We went back to Mount Vernon and ate at the Mount Vernon Inn. I had salmon which I doubt was on George's menu, though Rick and David had duck with apricot sauce, George's favorite dish.
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