The day after school ended we kayaked around the Concord River
then Dave, Caroline, and Erin flew to Maryland to spend 2 weeks visiting sisters. At Boxwood Farm there is always great grilling
and while I worked during the day, Charlie and Erin delivered me lunch. (I actually read that 1884 1st edition of US Grant's memoirs. Quite a general was Grant and one of those great American stories of a kid from Ohio earning an education and rising to the highest levels)
We dog-sat for tenants of a house even older than Boxwood Farm. Sudley house dates from the 1720s and had huuuge fireplaces in the great hall and bedrooms.
General Bobblehead George, you have come to the end of the road. You've seen your birthplace, Fort Necessity where you led your men into a massacre, the Cambridge common where you received command of the Continental Army, your winter headquarters at Morristown and Valley Forge, Yorktown, Federal Hall, the C&O canal, Fort Washington, and now your beloved home plantation of Mount Vernon.
All the cousins except Charlie made the trip
That is flax drying so its fibers can be harvested and spun into linen. Among the 3 natural fibers used for centuries in clothing, we'd seen cotton and wool demonstrations, but this was the first time seeing flax. It takes a lot of work to process the stalks into thread, but the interpreters who wore all-linen outfits loved the durability and softness.
Those are the fireworks for the DC celebration being loaded on a barge. I would guess that George's ghost approves of his docks use to commemorate an event from his lifetime.
And there is the original tomb and final resting place of GW
At Claire's we were treated to delicious meals and played many games
and the kids created a quest for me. In this one we had to direct the model to recreate famous paintings. Watch those arm and leg positions, Erin, you're a pre-Raphaelite.
The finale was a disarming of the "poisoned" soda bottle using Mentos
We knocked off the remaining unvisited NPS sites in DC. Here are the beautiful, ahem, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens on the Anacostia River. At least they were very green.
and there are always new monuments going up. This is the Dwight D. Eisenhower memorial shoehorned next to the Dept of Education and across from the Erin Space Museum.
and when Tessie and Heather flew into DCA, why wouldn't we brave the heat and humidity to see the Jefferson Memorial?
Dinner at Jerry's house was much better
Katy had a bumper crop of honey from her bees. She's streamlined the harvesting operation, which entails cutting off the caps of the boxes, spinning out the honey, filtering it, and then pouring it into bottles to give to friends and family.
