Mount Vernon Day 3

First off, If you’ve read my Day 1 post, I need to correct a mistake – those were not hawks, they were river hawks, also knows as ospreys.  They are actually really interesting birds – they are the only bird of prey to live solely on fish!

If you ever come to Mount Vernon, you should try to take the National Treasure Tour.  We took that tour this morning.  I had no idea what the tour was going to be of, I just showed up when I was supposed to.  Turns out, the second movie of National Treasure  was partly filmed here.  I’ve seen the movie but didn’t realize that Nicholas Cage kidnaps the president from a party at the mansion on Mount Vernon!  The tour took us many places, but the very most interesting was the cellar of the mansion.  Too cool.  We saw the vaults where George and Martha kept the wine.  We also so the real cornerstone of the building, which is a bit different than the one in the movie and doesn’t have any knobs or levers that turn – but it was really cool anyway!  I’m sad that we couldn’t take pictures in the cellar, only on the outside.

This afternoon we took a boat ride on the Potomac from Mount Vernon to Fort Washington.  The river is about a mile wide and very impressive.

Fort Washington

The mansion at Mount Vernon from the middle of the Potomac