George Washington Birthplace National Monument

While visiting my grandparents in eastern Virginia, we took 1 day to visit George Washington Birthplace National Monument, only about an hour & 1/2 away. 

I have driven past this park so many times before, as it is between one set of granparent's and another in Washington D.C.  I remember stopping here with dad, Josh, and maybe JD a long time ago, and on our last trip to VA Sarah, Jackson and I stopped, but in each of those cases it was only a short picnic stop. So, we definitely wanted to come back, visit the whole place, and check it off our list. 

This is a beautiful, small park in the rural, "Northern Neck" region of coastal Virginia.  I've written before about how much I love this area - it's not only beautiful and maintaining its rural character, but it is just about the "oldest" portion of our country, and is just oozing with history.  Within a 30 mile radius of this park, you also have the birthplaces of George Washington's mother, James Madison, Robert E. Lee, and so many others.  So manyof the Founding Fathers and signers of the Declaration of Independance lived in this area. 

We first went into the museum/interpretive center, where they have some very nice displays and exhibits.  As you might expect, they had lots of artifacts collected on sight.  They also had a video which was good, but Jackson was getting rammy so I didn't get to see the whole thing.

From the museum, you take a short, but pretty walk allong a path to see the actual buildings.  They have guided walks through each of the buildings every hour.  This was very interesting. 

The white house on the left is a reproduced kitchen, and the house in the backround is a reproduciton period house.  There's a long story about this, but essentially multiple groups for decades went back and forth over where exactly the house stood, and just after they finally settled on the location you see there, and actually completed construction, archaeologists found the original foundation, outlined in white stone in the foreground.

When you visit, you can certainly see why they chose this spot - its situated on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River on 1 side, and a creek (what many folks might call a slew) on the other.  You can just imagine how productive those waters used to be. 

My dream kitchen.

I just loved this beautiful tree.

Much of the park is a period working farm.  They had chickens, free ranging sheep, pigs, horses, etc.

We're not farmers yet, so Jackson got scared when these chickens suddenly flew.

There was lots of sheep poop around, so Jackson quickly learned the word "poopoo" and how to identify it.  He then proceeded to stop, point, and yell "poopoo!" at every pile until we acknowledged, "yes, Jackson, poopoo" on our long walk back to the museum.

We had a great time here.  It's a beautiful park and well worh the effort to get here.