Mt Vernon of course was George Washington's home, and it was our first stop on the trip today. It's a beautiful estate and obviously an enormously popular place for Americans to visit. The estate has been in the hands of the Mt Vernon Ladies Assocation since before the Civil War. They paid around $200,000 for it in 1853 - a huge amount of money at that time and equivalent to over $5 million today - restored it and have been maintaining it ever since.
The home is maintained as it was when he died in 1799, as is the rest of the estate. It would have been a beautiful place to live, at least for the family. For the workers and slaves it doesn't seem to have been so nice.
Next stop was Gettysburg. We had both always seen this as a highlight of this tour, and it was. We were driven around to quite a few places, and it was just amazing to be able to see the places that I've only seen on maps and read about before this - it really makes the whole battle so much clearer. One thing that became quite obvious for example was just how far out of place Dan Sickles moved his troops - I've seen it on maps and read about it, but standing on Little Round Top and having it pointed out in real life just made it so much clearer.
This is Devil's Den, viewed from Little Round Top:
After the tour of the battlefields we went to the visitors centre where we saw a movie about the civil war, and then saw the cyclorama - this is just one of the many scenes:
And of course, we ended up at the gift shop where we spent quite a bit actually - there were lots of nice things for sale and not so much of the usual cheap and tacky stuff.
I really would like to come back here and spend a couple of days to look at it properly. This is the most visited historical site in the USA, and next year is the 150th anniversary - they get 2,000,000 visitors a year and they're expecting an extra million next year.
Gettysburg had about 2400 residents at the time of the battle and it still only has about 7000 residents - it can't expand outwards because it's almost completely surrounded by the Gettysburg National Military Park and it can't expand upwards because of a rule that says that no building can be higher than the town hall. Many of the buildings still date from before the civil war, and buildings with damage from the war are highly sought after.
Tonight's dinner was an optional excursion to a restaurant which is in the oldest building in town. The food was quite nice - although as usual in the USA there was far too much of it! We ended up sitting with the three of the 'single' travellers - Rebecca from San Francisco, Bob from New Jersey, and Rob from Victoria. We've all travelled a fair bit and had lots of stories to share - we had a good time.
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