Sun Sept 27: DC to Mt Vernon anchorage

 In which we pay our respects to George ...

We talked Fabiana and Flavio into joining us for our trip down river to Mt. Vernon.   They were an excellent crew!  They even brought cupcakes from THE place...

 Fabiana was an exchange student from Brazil with Rick's family in 1982, and has been part of the family every since.  So I guess that makes her my sister-in-law...

It was a cloudy but nice morning for our 2-hour trip to anchor across the Potomac from George Washington's home.  It was mostly an uneventful trip - which is always what you hope for.   We had Flavio drive for a spell and at one point he said "I think something is wrong" - he had gotten out of the channel and was in 2 ft of water when Rick looked up from his phone. Yikes!  There was a hard left turn to get us back to the main channel between the buoys and we were quickly back in deep water. Crisis averted. Note to self:  stay off cell phone when supervising new drivers.

We dropped anchor across the river from Mt. Vernon and had a wonderful lunch.   After lowering the dinghy and coaxing the finicky outboard motor into reluctantly starting, we motored over to the Mt. Vernon dock for our tour of the Grist Mill and Distillery.   But, of course (because we dared say the word 'uneventful' earlier), the motor cut out about 150 feet from the dock - and I got an upper body workout with the oars while Rick whacked the motor.  Because whacking always solves things.  To impress our friends even further, the dock was in a a terrible state and we had to climb through cobwebs to get to dry land. 'Memorable', I am sure they will say later when they tell people about their boating adventure.

We had all planned to take the Grist Mill/Distillery tour at 3pm, and it was now 2:30pm so we hustled up through the grounds to the Education Center where we should have been able to take a shuttle - as the Grist Mill is 3 miles away from the main area.  But NO.  They weren't running shuttles to the Grist Mill at this point in the season/or due to Covid.  It was hard to tell.  They suggested we drive.  I got a little hot around the collar, but what could be done.  Mt. Vernon is in the middle of nowhere and Ubers there are like unicorns. 

We decided to salvage what we could and enjoy the main property - which is impressively restored:

 And I can appreciate that the Washington Family supports the idea of masks.  He was always an innovator.

As a, among other things, farm girl I was excited to see the 16-sided barn - our family barn is only regular-sided.  We need to step things up a notch.

 

 

After about 1 MILLION years of walking, we left Fabiana and Flavio to find their way back to DC (they were lucky and did get an Uber-corn) and headed back to the dinghy -with cautious optimism that it would start.  Get real - This is 2020.  It didn't.  I put my head down and started to row (while Rick, like a crazy person, continued to try to start the motor as though by magic). I am not going to lay odds on how our marriage would have fared - the anchorage spot is FAR AWAY from the dock.  But I was able to hail a lovely family on a passing boat and they gave us a tow. A cupcake seemed a small price to pay for a stable marriage so I was happy to part with one.

They were SO sweet, and cute!

 

Possibly the universe felt a little badly about the rowing and the lack of shuttles (and the political dumpster fire, actual fires, upcoming 'debate', hurricanes, brain-eating amoeba, etc) because it gave us an amazing end to the day.