The United Airlines non-stop flight from San Francisco to Baltimore/Washington International was so crowded Robin and I had to sit ten rows apart. So much for America's fear of flying. At BWI the Hertz counter had people stacked up like cordwood. One line to do the paperwork and another to wait for a car to show up. I was really wondering why all we had heard for the last month was Americans weren't travelling. They were sure as heck going to Baltimore. And renting cars, too. But we scored an upgrade and ended up with a very commodious Mercury Gran Marquis, in white, looking very much like an undercover police vehicle. Too bad the effect was spoiled by the Minnesota plates. Pegged as tourists even before we left the airport.

We located our hotel fairly easily in the dark, found the best local spot for crab cakes, and ate and drank ourselves into Atlantic Daylight Time. Then it was back to the hotel to prepare for the morning's trip into the eighteenth century. We checked our bags, got in our jammies, brushed our teeth, and so to bed.

The morning dawned rosy-fingered as we headed out Interstate 295 for the Washington Beltway and other parts unknown. With Robin navigating while I drove we decided, as we neared Washington, to make a side trip to Mt. Vernon. This would provide us with both a proper introduction to our eighteenth century odyssey and a chance to get some lunch. Both are good things but, as it was nearing noon, the latter seemed to take precidence over the former.

Our AAA map of the DC area lacked sufficient detail to make us feel comfortable about which turn-off to take so we trusted to fate and efficient signage to help us find the George Washington Memorial Parkway. We were not disappointed. As we crossed the Potomac on Highway 495 we spied it, a brown sign pointing the way to Mt. Vernon. We immediately wheeled off the bridge, found ourselves on a city street in Alexandria, Virginia, turned right at the next stoplight, and were on the parkway.

What followed would be repeated again and again as we explored both here and later within Virginia's Historic Triangle. We were amazed at the rural character of the countryside just a few miles outside of Washington. The parkway meandered alongside the Potomac with parks on the riverside and private homes scattered along the left. The forty-five mile per hour speed limit allowed us to leasurely examine our surroundings as we continued south to George Washington's beloved estate.

It was then that we started to believe that perhaps fewer Americans were taking to the roads. There were no cars before or behind us and only occasionally during the twenty-five minute trip to the entrance of the estate did we see a car coming from the opposite direction. And then we were there. The parkway ended in a roundabout directly in front of the estate. We passed by a solitary tour bus parked in front of the gift shop, closed and in the final stages of renovation, and found our way into the tree-lined parking area. I pulled into a spot not too far from the entrance and parked the Merc. We had arrived.

We strolled towards the entrance, checking out the lay of the land, and located the Mt. Vernon Inn just past the non-functional gift shop. It was not quite eleven thirty and we found we beat the lunch crowd from the tour bus. We were seated in short order, no pun intended, and treated to our first taste of that famous Southern hospitality. From the lunch menu Robin selected the Pulled Pork Barbeque sandwich and I chose the Old Virginia Ham Sandwich with cold glasses of iced tea to chase down their famous home-made tavern chips.

Sated now we left the Inn, walked to the ticket booth, paid the tariff, and entered the eighteenth century world of George Washington. Our journey into the past, and yours if you have visited or plan to vist Mt. Vernon, is due entirely to the efforts of Ann Pamela Cunningham, founder of the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association.

When, in 1850, the last Washington owner of Mt Vernon, John Augustine Washington, Jr., a

great-great nephew of George Washington, found himself in posession of Mt. Vernon he quickly discovered that he could not cope with the hoards of visitors who flocked to visit General Washington's home on the new roads or aboard the new steamships that now plied the Potomac. He tried to interest the federal government and then the government of Virginia in acquiring the historic home. Each declined the offer. Enter Ann Pamela Cunningham.

When she learned that what was left of the Washington plantation was being offered for sale she determined that it should be preserved as an historic monument to George Washington and early American history. She formed the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association of the Union in 1853 and recruted members from all over the United States to help raise money for the purchase of the estate. Five years later, in 1858, the group had raised $200,000 and purchased all of the primary buildings and the core 200 acres of the original plantation. Restoration efforts began at once and the refurbished Mt. Vernon began receiving visitors later that same year. Today the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association operates the estate as a non-profit organization and exists solely on receipts from ticket sales, profits from the gift shops and concessions, and the contributions of individuals and corporations. It was and remains a worthy effort that deserves our continued support.

As we walked through the gate at the head of the symmetrical path surrounding the central lawn or bowling green we bore to the right and through a grove of trees. Further to the right, behind the Upper Garden, was the large brick greenhouse and slave quarters. It was in the greenhouse that General Washington experimented with different types of plants that could be grown in the tobacco-depleated soils in an early effort at crop rotation. He was an advocate of self-sufficiency urging his fellow plantationers to wean themselves from dependence on the Ebglish brokers who sold their crops in England and then purchased the goods to ship back to Virginia. It was this system that seemed to keep most of the plantation owners perpetually in debt to their agents. Washington himself was successful in breaking the cycle of indebtedness and Mt. Vernon became a model after which others could pattern their estates.

The somber note to this and the other historical sites Robin and I visited was the discord of

slavery. Washington was a slave owner as were most well-to-do Americans of his time and virtually all of the southern plantation owners. It was upon the backs of these displaced Africans and their descendents that the wealth of the southern aristocracy was built and perpetuated. Yet Washington was as compassionate a slave-holder as existed in those times. He kept many more slaves than necessary to maintain his plantation because he refused to break up families as was often done when individual members were sold and taken away by their new owners. He chipped away at the size of his estate, selling land to raise the needed funds, rather than seperate the families of the slaves he owned. There is no evidence he mistreated any of his slaves and their living conditions were the equal of many freemen and women. Upon his death Washington's will specified that all his slaves be freed, something that veven the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, did not do.

We ambled past the "necessary," or privy and up toward the house. The tour starts in the servants quarters to the left of the main house. It was there we were told "No photography, please." So I tucked the Mavica back into its bag and we began our journey through Washington's home. It felt pleasantly odd to tread upon the same floors as had General Washington. From the formal dining room the tour wound its way around the first floor and up the stairs through the bedrooms of the Custis children and then into the Washington's room. There, against the wall, was an early version of a king-size bed. Measuring 6 1/2' by 6' it was barely large enough for the General. As we moved quietly through the house, listening to the docents in each area, I was struck, not literally thank goodness, by the height of the door jambs. Each was barely over 6' tall. As I ducked through doorway after doorway it seemed odd that Washington would have a house where he too would have to cock his head down every time he walked through a door. Curious, I asked the docent. "I am the same height as was Washington, just a shade under 6'4" and I have to duck through every doorway. Why

didn't Washington have larger doors in his house?" Her answer was that the General did not want to create a home where others would feel out of place. He felt it better that he should duck now and again rather than have his family and guests feel like they were in a giant's home. From what I have read of Washington, this seems perfectly in character.

Coming down a very narrow flight of stairs with a ceiling so low that I was told by three seperate people to watch my head we entered the General's study. Here we saw his books, globe, telescope, his favorite chair from the presidential house in Philadelphia, his coat, and his boots. For me it was seeing those very personal items that gave me the best sense of the man. His presence in the room was palpable, one could almost hear him stirring in his chair as he wrote as his desk, legs akimbo, as they certainly never would have fit in the miniscule knee space below the soft beige writing surface.

We passed through the coat closet area, through the door to the outside and into the bright daylight. It was even brighter than usual because off to our left, just outside the window to the seperate building that houses the kitchen, was a pole full of stage lights pouring incandescence into the confines of the kitchen. It seems Martha Stewart ™ was there filming an episode of her "Martha's Kitchen" television show in the Washington's kitchen. One Martha to another, I suppose. As a result the kitchen was off-limits but I did slink up and sneak a photo while the TV crew weren't looking. Gotcha!

So follow our trip through Mt. Vernon with the photo gallery. I'm sure you'll enjoy things a lot more if I'm not talking.

Then it was back to the parking lot, into the Merc, and off to Colonial Williamsburg! But that's a story for next time. See y'all then.---JBW

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