Monday, Labor Day September 5, 2011
Photos
So sorry that the photos are not arranged in the order they were taken. PhotoBucket officially sucks!
Clay had a long night's sleep. Mine was a bit more fitful due to the very loud A/C unit in the wall. I was first up between 6 and 7am. The complimentary breakfast began at 7am. Nothing else for us in the area began before 9am though. We were not the first people into breakfast, but we were out before it got really crowded in there. It was a buffet, self-serve hot and cold breakfast in a large room just across from the reception desk in the lobby. Clay stayed with cold food and I stayed with hot. They also had 2 waffle irons. I made one while we ate and we shared it for dessert!
After breakfast, we had time to kill. We found the fitness room in good use and then went back to our room. We brushed our teeth and packed up. Then Clay went back to sleep for an hour or so. I stayed quiet! I woke him about 9am and said everything is open now. We packed up the car and checked out. We drove about 10-15 minutes to
Ash Lawn - Highlands, the James Monroe home.
Ash Lawn - Highlands was probably most what we expected a president's private home to look like and our least favorite tour. First of all, the home was most altered after the Monroe's left it. The reconstruction of a portion of the original home is odd. It is 2 stories instead of 1 and the floor is about 3-4 feet higher than the remaining original home. Also, it was very hot and humid that day and the A/C in the home was not working. We were told that it was not as unbearable as the previous day had been. But we had a good-sized tour group and even though we were the first tour of the day, it got uncomfortable in the house. Also, it was a very small house compared to Monticello or Montpelier, yet the tour was over an hour! Our guide droned on about the date and provenance of practically every piece of art, furnishing, wall covering, etc. We had not planned on that much time at a minor (in our minds anyway!) home. Anyway, that put us off our schedule for the remainder of the day. Remember that we had not originally planned to see Ash Lawn and Montpelier. We had planned to drive to Antietam and see what else there was to do. But, once we realized we could see 3 presidential homes and 3 Wright homes, we liked the symmetry and changed plans. One thing that we learned about that was new and after Williamsburg, etc. I am not sure how it never came up before, but
tea bricks. They had them for sale at several of our stops! I am positive that I had never heard of or seen such a thing before. But, our guide assured us this is what was thrown in the harbor at the Boston Tea Party. So, there you go. That very comprehensive tour was not a complete waste of time!
It was getting overcast and humid as we left. We stopped in to use the restrooms outside the gift shop as we left. The walls and doors and windows and ceiling under the covered area had an inordinate number of green grasshoppers clinging to them! We wondered if it was like flies becoming clingy before a storm. In any event, the great rain of Lee was on us!
Montpelier was further away than we thought. Clay would not have added it to our things to do, if the maps we had picked up in Charlottesville advertising the 3 had been to scale. I was willing to use the new Virginia state map I had picked up and not Clay's 3 competing GPS systems. So, I thought it was not putting us out of our way. The GPS debate will undoubtedly continue as Clay cannot find North nor read a map to save himself! And I find every GPS system he has put us through to have enough differences and enough unreliablities to make them an annoying hazard rather than a useful tool. Just sayin'... makes road trips a challenge.
Making up time we skipped lunch today. We snacked on some nabs and cinnamon almonds I had in the car. Along with some bottled water I had packed and some Coke Zero for Clay that he had picked up at a grocery store in Charlottesville. Which reminds me of Clay's brief money magnetism. He scored an extra $5 back at the self-checkout for an otherwise very overpriced small cans 8-pack! Then walking up to Ash Lawn, someone must have had a hole in their pocket because he picked up close to a dollar in change off the brick walkway to get our tickets.
On to
Montpelier, I think this was my favorite of the houses. Home to James and Dolley Madison. James Madison actually died in the house. They play a recording of an actor reading what the slave that attended his death had to say about it, while you are standing in the actual room. It was dramatic, if not a little ghoulish and morbid. Montpelier was owned by the DuPont family for a number of years and they added 31 rooms. Those additions have been removed now and it is restored to its state at the time of Madison's death. We saw where Madison wrote the Constitution, but we did not see his view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I am afraid that the rest of our trip was of the "On a clear day you can see... BUT not today" nature. There was lots more to see here than just the house, but we were pressed for time by now and it was pouring rain!
We drove through the afternoon in mostly rain to get to
Antietam Battlefield National Park about 2 hours before closing. We were happy to be able to just flash Clay's new $10 lifetime NPS pass for our entry! Technically, they close at dark, but it was nearly dark at close to 4pm when we arrived. I think official sunset a couple of days ago was after 7:15pm, so apparently the Park Service was working off something like that rather observed darkness. We had time to buy Clay a t-shirt, see the film and visit their small museum of artifacts before setting of f on the drive. Here is the problem with history, it can be hard to see. Even on a clear sunny day! On a dark and pouring afternoon, it is next to impossible. But, what we saw was well done and moving.
We were glad though that we spent the morning touring presidents' houses rather than rushing up here. The down side was that we wound up with no spare time to check out the
C&O Canal park running along the Potomac River across from our hotel. Clay says we'll save that for a return to PA to visit Hershey. We had debated adding a day to go east to see that and ultimately decided no. In hindsight, an excellent decision since we would have gotten caught up in the flooding over there. We saw enough rain in southwest PA! Anyway, at dinner at the Rathskeller at our hotel for the night The Bavarian Inn, we sat near a table of people bicycle touring the C&O Canal and we definitely were happy not to be having their vacation!
We checked in to the
Bavarian Inn overlooking the Potomac River in West Virginia (Antietam was in Maryland) after dark and ready for dinner. They have an excellent
German restaurant there, but Clay was inappropriately in shorts after 5:30pm already. We asked and they serve the same menu in the very small but casual Rathskeller downstairs. They suggested we make reservations since space is limited. We did and parked the car in front of our Schwarzwald Haus building. Got our bags settled in and washed up and then walked back over to the Greystone Mansion for dinner.
Probably the best meal of our trip was here at the Bavarian Inn. Clay was not really happy though, because he mis-ordered. He had something
very specific in mind (which was not on the menu!) but he ordered pork in gravy which he hates anyway! Oh well. I had a roast pork dish too. I thought both were very good. Clay might have enjoyed one or the other but he had crispy pork knuckles on his mind and nothing was filling that need. We both had a starter and were too stuffed for dessert.
We waddled back across to our building and up to bed. The room here was nice, but not sure if it was worth the price difference with the Comfort Inn last night. Comfort Inn included breakfast. Comfort Inn had a mini fridge in the room. We missed that at the Bavarian Inn. But, BI had bathrobes (which we didn't use), a 2nd sink (which we did use), a balcony (um, OK we used it to take a photo of the Potomac while we were still rain drenched, but that was it!), and most importantly, the A/C unit in the wall was very quiet (for the win). Bavarian Inn had 2 apples on the table and did not include breakfast. We took the apples with us the next morning for breakfast.
We had to get up and get a really early start in the morning to make sure we had time to find Kentuck Knob by 10:15am the next day. So, we went straight to bed. We both slept soundly right through the night.
I'll be back soon with the main event of our trip, the 3 Wright houses.
