Virginia

Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

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Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

We visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in mid-November 2025 while staying at the Thousand Trails Williamsburg RV Park about 10-miles away. There was so much to see on the 300-acre site we visited twice about a week apart. We started our visits at the visitor center which is located about a mile away from the historic district, with both a shuttle and walking trail that takes you to the historic district and back. During our visits we took both the walking trail and the shuttle bus on different occasions.

Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in Williamsburg, Virginia. Its 301-acre historic area includes several hundred restored or recreated buildings from the 18th century, when the city served as the capital of the colonial era Colony of Virginia. The district also includes 17th-century, 19th-century, Colonial Revival, and more recent structures and reconstructions. Costumed employees work and dress as people did during the colonial era. The costumed employees provide tours and presentations at the various major buildings as well as working and demonstrating in the various trades shops scattered throughout the site.

Both the shuttle bus and walking trail enter the historic district near the Governor’s Palace at the north end of the site. We took a guided tour of the Governor’s Palace which included most of the main rooms. The guide provided interesting historical context about the building and its history, particularly in relation to the events around the revolutionary period of the 18th century. We walked south along the green belt known as the Palace Green towards Duke of Gloucester Street which is the main East-West thoroughfare through the historic district. It is bounded at the West end by William and Mary College, and at the East end by the Capitol Building.

There were a lot of things to visit along Duke of Gloucester Street including historic homes, stores, and workshops. We made our way to the east end of the street, visiting various places along the way. At the east end of the street, we reached the reconstructed Capitol Building. We took a self-guided tour of the building that included period-costumed presenters in various rooms who talked about the history of the building and the events that took place there. Most notably, this building was the home The House of Burgesses, the lower branch of colonial Virginia’s General Assembly, elected by property-owning voters throughout Virginia. Having first met in Jamestown in 1619, the Burgesses gathered in the Williamsburg Capitol from 1705 until 1776. Many of Virginia’s leading revolutionaries, including Peyton Randolph, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, served as Burgesses.

Allen remembered visiting Colonial Williamsburg on a 7th Grade school trip. He had some general memories of the town and buildings, and a specific memory of having beef and barley soup for lunch at the Kings Arms Tavern. We decided to have lunch there on our visit some 45-years later, and enjoyed a good lunch based on colonial era recipes. During lunch, we were entertained by a minstrel who sang and played a period guitar as well as telling stories about some of the period songs and tavern-life from the 18th century.

The Historic Trades and Skills community at Colonial Williamsburg uses 18th-century tools and techniques to apprentice in and eventually master more than 20 historic trades and skills. The trades shops help produce materials and equipment that are used in the ongoing restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and demonstrate their skills in period workshops scattered throughout the site. We visited several trade shops including a furniture maker, tinsmith, and blacksmith. They all talked about how the shops would have operated in the revolutionary era, and showed examples of their work, all prepared using period tools and equipment.

There was a lot to see and do at Colonial Williamsburg, and you could easily spend several days visiting multiple buildings and taking tours. We were able to see all of the main buildings and walk around all of the historic district during our two visits.

Pictures of our visits are provided below. Click on the thumbnails for the full size images.

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

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George Washington’s Mount Vernon

We visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate while staying at the nearby Pohick Bay Regional Park in Lorton, Virginia about 12-miles away.

We started our visit at the visitor center, where we attended a virtual presentation of the home and its main rooms. The majority of the home was closed during our visit for renovations, so the virtual presentation took the place of the home tour. Even though the home was closed there was plenty to see as we walked around the estate including expansive views along the Potomac River, out-buildings, gardens, a pier on the Potomac, and a farm area.

The building began as a one and one-half story house built in 1734 by George Washington’s father, Augustine Washington, and received its well-known name from his half-brother Lawrence Washington. George Washington began running Mount Vernon in 1754, and over the next 45 years slowly enlarged the dwelling to create the 21-room residence we see today. Washington oversaw each renovation, advising on design, construction, and decoration, despite being away much of the time. Conscious that the world was watching, Washington selected architectural features that expressed his growing status as a Virginia gentleman and ultimately as the leader of a new nation. The estate contained 8,000 acres when George Washington lived there.

As we walked around the outside of the home and outbuildings it was fascinating to see how the wood siding had been shaped and painted to have the appearance of stone. There were several gardens near the home including formal gardens, a kitchen garden, and an orchard as well as a large greenhouse next to the upper gardens.

In 1858 the now run-down and dilapidated building and 200 acres of surrounding land was purchased by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA) for $200,000 with the intention to preserve George Washington’s residence and to prevent its sale to land speculators. The MVLA became the nation’s first historic preservation organization, as well as one of the first national women’s organizations. Mount Vernon opened to the public in 1860, and renovations and refurnishing of the building continued over the next few decades. Between 1868 until 1891, the MVLA furnish each room in the Mansion. Eighteenth-century pieces were to be used wherever possible, with more recent Greek Revival and Victorian furnishings filling the gaps. Many decades would pass before the MVLA could furnish all rooms with original Washington pieces or very similar examples.

Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is still owned and maintained in trust by the MVLA, being open to the public daily in recognition of George Washington’s 1794 acknowledgement of public interest in his estate: “I have no objection to any sober or orderly person’s gratifying their curiosity in viewing the buildings, Gardens, etc. about Mount Vernon.”

We had booked a table at the Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant which is near the visitor entrance on the estate grounds, and we took a break to eat lunch during our visit. The restaurant promotes its menu as featuring “the flavors of early America”. We found there to be a great selection to choose from to suit all diets and preferences and thoroughly enjoyed our meal in the historical stylings of the restaurant dining room.

When we booked our tickets, we signed up for the 60-minute “Enslaved People of Mount Vernon Tour”. Our small group was led by an expert tour guide as we explored the lives and contributions of the enslaved community who built and operated Mount Vernon. In 1799, more than 300 slaves lived and worked on the five farms that made up Washington’s 8,000-acre plantation. We learned about their daily life, and visited the slave quarters to view reproduction clothing, tools, furniture, cookware, ceramics, toys, and personal.

Following his death on December 14, 1799, George Washington’s remains were placed in a family vault on the hillside overlooking the Potomac River. Washington knew this site would not be tenable for much longer and stipulated in his will that a New Tomb be constructed below his orchard. In 1831, the remains from the old family vault, including those of General and Mrs. Washington, were moved to their current resting place, which we visited as we walked from the home, through the orchard and towards the Slave Memorial.

The Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon was designed by students attending the architectural school at Howard University. It was dedicated and opened to the public on September 21, 1983, and sits within the burial grounds for those enslaved and a few free Black Americans who worked at Mount Vernon in the 18th and 19th centuries. The memorial is located approximately 50 yards southwest of George and Martha Washington’s tomb, on a bluff above the Potomac River.

We visited the pier and wharf on the Potomac where visitors to Mount Vernon would have arrived along the river and followed the path around to the farm area of the estate with its 16-sided barn located at one end. The farm area provides a small representation of the more than 3,000 acres Washington cultivated during the second half of the 18th century across four different farms. The original 16-sided barn was built in 1792 on Mount Vernon’s Dogue Run Farm by enslaved craftsmen. The barn was the center of a complex that included two corn houses and two stables housing approximately 20 animals who worked in the barn. The barn was reconstructed in 1996 in accordance with the original plans and specifications that Washington sent to his carpenter.

The brilliance of the 16-sided treading barn was taking the most efficient method of processing horsepower/treading and moving it under cover. The other unique quality of the barn was its two-story structure with one-and-a-half-inched gapped floorboards on the top level where an acre’s worth of wheat could be laid down for horses to trot on. The horses were led up the ramp and immediately put into a trot for 30 to 45 minutes. Their hooves knocked 90 percent of the seed from the top of the stalk down through the floorboards to the clean wooden granary floor below. Only 10 percent of the straw escaped through the floorboards, keeping 90 percent of that waste on the treading floor. Once the seed had fallen to the granary floor below, it was swept up, and the seed was separated from the chaff in a process called “winnowing.” At that point, the grain was either stored or transported to Washington’s gristmill for processing into flour.

Our visit to Mount Vernon offered a fascinating glimpse into the life of George Washington and his family, in particular his life as a landowner and farmer as well as a great Statesman and General.

Pictures from our visit are provided below.

Washington DC by Bike

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Washington DC by Bike

We visited Washington DC in early November 2025 while staying at the Pohick Bay Regional Park in Lorton, Virginia. We rode our bikes along the Mount Vernon Trail from Alexandria, about 10-miles into DC and parked at the Jefferson Memorial before continuing our tour on foot around the Tidal Basin, National Mall, and a number of other memorials and monuments, famous and less-famous.

The Mount Vernon Trail is an 18-mile paved multi-use trail that stretches from George Washington’s Mount Vernon to Washington DC. The trail links Fairfax County and the City of Alexandria, to Arlington County and major Potomac River bridge crossings into the District of Columbia. The National Park Service originally constructed the Mount Vernon Trail in the 1970s and 1980s. The Mount Vernon Trail winds alongside the Potomac River with great views of the Washington DC skyline. We really enjoyed riding our bikes along this trail and were grateful we didn’t need to find parking for our F450 dually truck in DC. Allen had last been to DC on a 7th Grade School trip, and Martin had visited briefly in the early 1990’s, so it was a long time since either of us had visited, and a number of the monuments didn’t even exist during our original trips.

After parking our bikes and visiting the Jefferson Memorial we headed north on foot around the east side of the Washington Channel Tidal Basin, past the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the National Holocaust Museum, and on to the Washington Monument that sits in the center of the National Mall. To the east we had clear views of the United States Capitol Building, and to the west we could see the Lincoln Memorial beyond its iconic reflecting pool. We continued on foot west towards the Lincoln Memorial. On the way we visited the World War II Memorial that was dedicated in 2004. The memorial surrounds a large stone plaza and fountain with a ring of columns representing the U.S. states and territories, joined together by a bronze cord symbolizing their united effort.

Continuing on towards the Lincoln Memorial, we sat on a park bench near the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool to eat our picnic lunch. We were passed by a number of guided tours using a variety of transportation including segues and e-bikes. Continuing on we walked through the very poignant Vietnam Veterans Memorial with its famous black granite walls listing the names of over 58,000 servicemembers who gave their lives between 1956 and 1975 in chronological order starting and ending at the center of the wall.

Our visit to the Lincoln Memorial was all the more interesting as we had recently been to Gettysburg and visited the site of Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address, putting his life and achievements into some context. From the Lincoln Memorial at the west end of the National Mall we continued towards the tidal basin, passing through the Korean War Veterans Memorial which features a formation of 19 stainless steel statues representing a U.S. Army patrol moving through rugged terrain. The soldiers—drawn from different branches of the armed forces—are depicted in ponchos and combat gear, evoking the harsh conditions of the Korean Peninsula.

One of the most recent (2011) and spectacular memorials is the Martin Luther King Memorial at the north side of the Tidal Basin. This memorial depicts a 30-foot carving of King on a feature called the “Stone of Hope” that is being moved out of a feature called the “Mountain of Despair,” a reference to a line in the “I Have a Dream” speech. King is represented standing firm, resolute, and thoughtful, holding a rolled stack of papers. Quotations from speeches and writings are engraved on the arced “Inscription Wall” on the flanks of the memorial.

Continuing south around the west side of the Tidal Basin we walked under some of the famous cherry trees that were originally a gift from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo in 1910. Unfortunately, these trees became diseased, but they were replaced in 1912 with over 3,000 new plants. A few dozen of the original Tidal Basin trees still bloom each year and have been supplemented with thousands more throughout the district.

On our way round the west side of the tidal basin we entered the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial that opened in 1997. The FDR Memorial is not a monolithic, white marble structure, but a flowing landscape of architectural design. The memorial is designed as a timeline starting at the northernmost end. Bronze sculptures by several artists depict the longest-serving president and the major issues he dealt with during his presidency including the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II. The memorial consists of a series of “rooms” celebrating the 4 terms of FDR’s presidency.

Continuing on around the Tidal Basin we completed our loop back to the Jefferson Memorial and returned to our bike parking spot. It was a great half-day touring around Washington DC. We got to see a lot in a couple of miles walk around the Tidal Basin and National Mall.

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