Blast from the...Ogden, Utah

What a small world we live in, really. There's a girl from Ogden named Laura Butler that just moved to Baltimore (about an hour away from where I live), and she came to visit me this last weekend. Her and I both went to WSU at the same time. We were in the same ward for a short time and went to a lot of the same social gatherings, but we were only acquaintances really. It was so much fun to get to know her better this weekend. I'm really glad she came out.
We went to Mt. Vernon, and I showed her around the National Mall, just the main monuments. Sunday we went to Arlington Cemetery. It was all so much fun, and the weather was so nice this weekend which just made for a really great time.

Keeper's house (now gift shop) of George Washington's Distillery and Gristmill at Mt. Vernon.

Saturday they were grinding corn. The meal drops into the shaker from the giant water-powered stone wheels that grind it above. The shaker then separates human-grade and chicken feed. The whole process is actually really amazing. Washington was an innovator in more ways than one. He incorporated a lot of cutting-edge technology in his business and came up with his own share of new processes.

This is the distillery. They actually still produce limited quanitities of whisky and sell it at the gift shop. This process is very interesting as well. About halfway through the tour of the distillery, the guide mentioned slaves...and it never struck me before that, but Washington was more the brains than the labor. I started looking at all of it much differently after that. I think we all often experience everything from our own perspective and forget how things can be and are very different.

 

This is one of the many gardens at Mt. Vernon.

 

This is a courtyard that separates the garden from the slaves' quarters. The building has some repair shops and slaves' quarters on either side, male on one, female on the other.

Slaves quarters. It may have been a step up from prison since there were no bars, but it was really just a place to lay their head at night.

The Washington home. There's and arch-lined walkway on either side of the home that connects it to the two buildings surrounding it immediately. The one on the right is the kitchen. The building not pictured, located left of the home, was a guest house of sorts. The Washington's always housed their guests right in their home with them, but any slave or servant brought in tow with the guests would stay in the guest house.

 

Laura and I met a really nice Australian woman that took our picture while we waited to walk into the house. It was actually really busy and had a line. The woman had just come from Hawaii and was fixing to leave to New York soon. She's on a 2-month tour visiting family and friends. What a brave lady!! All on her own.

The Wharf. The river is literally in the back yard of Washington home. They have a big boat, the Spirit of Mt. Vernon (or some cliche boat name like that), that you can take a ride down the river if you'd like. We didn't. 

Washington innovated this barn to process the separating of the wheat grains from the chaff. The upper level was rigged for horses to walk in a circle on a bed of unprocessed wheat, straight from the field. Holes in the flooring allowed the grain to be pushed to the base floor after being knocked free from the stems. The bottom floor was then swept into big piles that were sorted through with various grate sizes of woven baskets and plates before they were taken to the distillery for grinding.

Washington tomb. Martha and George were moved here several years after Martha's death. 1805 maybe? George died in 1799. He wrote in his will for this tomb to be built, but the marble coffins he had requested did not fit through the metal door (as you can see behind the wreath), so they were left outside of the tomb and left enclosed by the three walls with a gate on the outside.

 

They had a flag ceremony at the tomb.

 

The home from across the front yard.

 

Laura was modeling the Washington Monument, and I thought it was so funny, I couldn't resist waiting to tell her it was on her other side before I snapped the picture.

Laura and I at the base of the Washington Memonument. That's right, you've been saying it wrong all of these years. It had been a long day. It just came out 'memonument'.

WWII Memorial

Arlington Cemetery

Lt. Lee's home at Arlington Cemetery. He was married to one of George Washington's granddaughters, or great granddaughter. I didn't know that before. The Lee and Custis family's (Martha Washington was a Custis), were two of the founding families in Virginia.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We watched the changing of the guard.

If all goes as planned, I'm visiting Baltimore this weekend, and Laura will show me around. I'm excited to eat some crab, visit the aquarium and see Inner Harbor. I'll post! Until then...