Wednesday, August 31, 2011

VA Day 2

Day 2 of my Virginia vacation was awesome, plus a crushing blow.


We started the day with breakfast at "Bob Evans".  Katie & I were determined to dine at BE on our last x-country road trip, but only managed Cracker Barrel before we left the midwest and Bob Evans land.  My breakfast was good, and the biscuits were quite tasty.  Bob doesn't hold a candle to Cracker Barrel in the cheesy gifts area though.

Our next stop ended in disaster and disappointment!  Right across the highway from Bob Evans has always been my next dream stop: the strip mall location of "A Soldier's Life: Civil War Museum".  Somehow, in 6 years of visiting F-burg, I've never made it to this little museum.  And I was determined that this was the time.  Sadly, the Visitor's Bureau reported that the museum had closed/moved down by the James Monroe House, aka World's Saddest Museum.  The Visitor's Bureau told Cara that "he didn't get enough traffic, sometimes he only had 2 visitors a DAY".  She thought 2 a WEEK would have been a success.  Well, he also didn't have all his exhibits back up and was "focusing on his vintage photography".  Damn it.

We rallied after that disaster, and headed up to Mount Vernon:
Lovely.  The estate is beautiful, the mansion is beautiful and it was an interesting place to tour.  Granted, GW didn't have as many interesting inventions and whatnots as at Monticello, but the rooms have been restored to their original colors and decor and I really loved it.  I'd move into George and Martha's bedroom in a heartbeat.

3 comments:

zaideafraidey said...

weren't the room colors interesting? That is a neat place to tour, the gardens everything. Sorry about your museum, even I (your ever faithful exhibit buddy) might have had a problem with that one. Probably better left in your dreams of what you thought it would be.

Unknown said...

Their bedroom was delightful, and I love George's office. Did you tour the grounds? My favorite part is the barn for sure. I can't believe the museum was down (OK, that's a lie. I can totally believe that it was down!) Maybe it will help world's saddest Presidential museum to be next to it. Enjoy day 3 mom!

Laurie said...

LOVED the room colors. In fact, I'm hoping we can paint our dining room that bright green :-) We did tour the grounds, and I dazzled the docent who was stationed outside one of the gardens with my knowledge of the recent archaeological reconstruction of the garden (my subscription to Archaeology mag finally paid off for me!) The tomb was cool, loved the stables, we spent a bit of time with the hogs.

The Soldier's Life Museum is dead to me. Damn that man for shutting it down before I could get there.