Historical Highlights tour part 2

Day two of the tour was an early start as were most mornings. We left Washington for our first stop Mount Vernon home of George Washington. 

Here we had a tour of the house and learnt more about George Washington. There is also a museum with a few short films. I have what they call an ear worm which has haunted me for a couple of years now and one of the films has the same song. Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! Needless to say I had it stuck again!  The house is amazing seeing how it would have been and even the bed George Washington died in. The views are amazing. They look out on the Potomac and wow do they have a view.

 George and Martha Washington with there 2 grand children

They have a great gift shop that has some interesting items. Each year a new Christmas Decoration is created and I was able to pick up a few older ones. Also got a really nice T-Shirt there. It was a really nice place to visit and I did learn a lot there. We headed then to Fredricksburg for lunch at Cracker Barrel. They have good food and from experience I learnt that they are big meals and having a meal included in the tour I made sure I had a smaller meal.
Even the childrens menu meal was to big for me.

 The afternoon stop was Yorktown where were had a guided tour and learnt more about how Washington finally defeated Cornwallis. We were divided into two groups and we had an excellent guide. She was so knowledgeable and made it fun. She answered questions and was fun. We learnt what tools were used for medical procedures and the chances of survival. 
We saw how the troops would have slept 6 in a tent. Also the cook fire which would have been a communal fire where each tent would have done there own cooking. We saw how Tobacco was the crop that was farmed and how it was grown and then dried. We learnt about how the slaves were uses to grow the tobacco as they were use to this sort of farming. 

Oh other information We learnt that often when people moved into a house they would be given a gift of a metal plate which was often decorative to put in the back of the fire place to reflect the heat into the house. This was called a house warming gift. The one we saw was a wedding gift. 

growing Tobacco.

The next two nights would be in Williamsburg. At night we had a included meal with entertainment. We had a man sing ballads to us that would have been sung back in colonial times. Seems a lot of the old tunes have been used for other songs. Many were tavern songs which then became the tune for other songs. God Save the Queen was used for another tune. Even Waltzing Matilda originally was a tavern tune. The man singing was really good and he told us history of the time. Had some fun with us (Including us Aussies).