Becoming Nicholas Cage

This is exactly what you think it is.

I hope.

As a child-turned-adult who was once/is obsessed with the hit movie, National Treasure, my first thoughts about going to Washington, D.C. revolved around me seeing all of the scenes from the film in person.

To make things even better, my travel companion, Sarah, is a huge presidential nerd, and eats up anything and everything related to American presidents. Which means she asked if we could make one of the destination on our trip, the one, the only, the estate of George Washington: Mount Vernon.

Which also happens to be the location of some of my favorite scenes in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.

For those who haven’t seen it, the second film brings Nicholas Cage and his ragtag team of treasure hunters to Mount Vernon during the President’s birthday party, during which Ben (Nick’s character) “kidnaps” the president to ask him about the mysterious President’s Book of Secrets. He brings the president a map of Mount Vernon, which shows a secret tunnel under the house. The two go there, and Ben closes the secret door shut, trapping them in the tunnels and sending the Secret Service into a panic. The president gives Ben the location of the Book of Secrets, and Ben escapes to the wharf on the estate, where his father is waiting, and the two escape via boat down the Potomac River.

Mount Vernon holds a special National Treasure tour, which I of course, demanded we go on. It was an excellent choice for a multitude of reasons.

First and foremost, let’s regroup on the weather situation. As I mentioned in my previous post, the weather was disgusting and hot in D.C. during our trip. To make matters worse, Mount Vernon, being built in 1734, does not in fact, have air conditioning, so it was incredibly hot.

However! The National Treasure tour begins in the basement of the estate, where Ben and the president enter the secret passage. The great thing about 1734 basements is that they are incredibly cool! So after standing in the sweltering heat, we were given a glorious reprieve by hanging out in the basement of the home for over an hour, because our tour guide was a delightful Chatty Cathy, and I was very grateful for it.

Secondly, it was one of the best nerd moments of my life.

After giving us a little recap of George Washington’s life, our guide brought us to the side of the house, where Ben and the president first enter the basement of Mount Vernon.

These cute little doors open up to a little cellar that you climb down into.

Because it was the 1730’s, the people were much shorter, and also, this was a cellar. So we definitely had to duck to enter the cellar.

And here it is!

Fun fact! That was all they truly filmed for this scene! Because Nicholas Cage is so tall, they couldn’t film and get all of their camera equipment in the space properly, so they rebuilt a replica of the cellar in LA, where they film the rest of the scene. The only portions they film are Ben and the president opening the doors and coming down the stairs of the cellar.

However, our guide showed us the rooms that the set were based on.

Like this one! The bricks in the wall are supposed to slide open, which is how Ben and the president enter the secret tunnels, which sadly, “do not exist” in real life. I’m keeping my mind open and my hopes up.

To trigger the secret door to open, they move around the arrow on this cornerstone.

LW stand for Lawrence Washington, who was George’s brother. Cute.

The tour also included a walk to the wharf, which our guide offered to give, but since it was so hot (like 110 degrees), he gave us the information about the spot and told us we could take a shuttle to the wharf if we wanted to, as the wharf was a pretty far walk away, and some members of our tour group weren’t keen on walking all the way there.

Instead, he showed us George Washington’s original resting place.

Now, he and Martha are in a new vault.

I’m not sure who that lady is. There was a constant flow of people walking up to the vault, so this was as good of a photo as I could get!

Sarah and I decided to hop on a tour of the buildings before walking to the wharf, so we headed back to the home.

The house was under construction, so that was a bit of a bummer, as the face of the building was obscured.

Interestingly enough, the house, which looks like it’s made of brick, is actually made of wood.

Which is why they were renovating the exterior of the building. Washington opted to have the wooden exterior vs. brick exterior, as it was cheaper. He had the wood carved to look like brick, and it was painted and coated with sand, which gave it a brick-like finish, as you can see below.

Pretty crafty.

We took a tour of the home, which included some crazy flamboyant rooms, such as this turquoise room that I would personally love to live in.

Or this bomb green room with crazy flooring.

That is a dining room I would like to eat in.

We also saw the EXACT bed that George Washington died in.

I have to say, it was a crazy experience seeing that. It’s really hard to reconcile the things and places you’ve learned about while growing up with their actual, physical presence in front of you. I had to pause here for awhile to really wrap my head around the fact that I was standing in the same home that George Washington built and lived in, returned to after his presidency, and actually passed away in. He’s such a massive figure in our history, it was hard to fathom that I was actually in that place.

After the tour, we headed out to the East Lawn, which is where the president’s birthday party takes place in National Treasure 2 (we’re back to that, now).

That’s a nice lawn.

And it has a nice view of the Potomac, too.

Definitely would have found me sitting out on that porch.

*Obligatory photo of us on the East Lawn.*

Next, we walked to the wharf, which I very much enjoyed in that we got to experience a little more of the outdoors, but also, it was hot. I don’t think I can stress that enough (I know I’ve said this, but I’ll say it again. 110 degrees, people).

But we made it to the wharf!

If I had an extra set of clothes, I would have jumped in just to cool off.

It was a really beautiful spot – very calming. You know how I feel about water.

Starving, thirsty, and dying of heat, we headed to the restaurant on the estate for lunch, where we gracefully chugged lemonades and devoured delicious salads.

Steak, bleu cheese, and Brussel sprout salad? Yes, please, sign me up.

I then insisted that we visit the gift shop, knowing they would sell replica fans, and knowing I absolutely needed one.

They did, I bought it, and I used it the whole trip.

You will see it continuously pop up in my photos from here on out, because the fan became a necessary extension of myself.

We then visited the museum at Mount Vernon, where we learned that a group of women came together and created the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Society to save George Washington’s estate. The museum had the sassiest, most-boss quote from one of the women plastered on its wall: “If the men of America are allowing the home of its most respected hero to go to ruin, why can’t the women of America band together to save it?”

Shots fired.

The museum was cool in both senses of the word, and we saw a lot of cool Washington artifacts, like his cute little glasses.

We also saw one of Martha’s dresses and some of her jewelry, which as expected, I very much liked.

Those shoes, though.

I 1,000% would wear that necklace. In a heartbeat. Trying to figure out how to get a replica.

And here’s lovely Martha wearing it.

One of the coolest and grossest things they had were George Washington’s actual dentures!

They were not made of wood, unlike his home’s exterior. They were made of cow bones instead! Which is worse. They are a little creepy to look at, and I don’t quite understand how they worked, but it was definitely interesting to see them!

They had a lot of great exhibits, especially an extremely well-done exhibit that was honest about slavery and it’s presence at Mount Vernon. Having toured plantations in the South and being unsettled by their attempts to explain away slavery and it’s existence, I was glad to see the collateral at Mount Vernon being real about Washington’s owning of slaves. They also had an exhibit with the name of each slave at Mount Vernon, and included the background and story they had, if known, about each person. They had some artifacts from some of the people, as well. I liked that approach – that they educated visitors on the reality of slavery at Mount Vernon instead of trying to brush it under the rug or make it sound less horrible, like what I heard during my tours in the South.

Having seen all that there was at Mount Vernon, we headed back to D.C. to check out the International Spy Museum, which exceeded my expectations and disappointed me all at once.

We tried to get on the last tour of the day, and didn’t realize that it would definitely not be enough time to see all that there was. It was so, so well done, and so interesting, but it wasn’t possible to see everything they had in the time we had before the museum closed, so I was pretty sad that we didn’t get the full experience. I would definitely love to go back. If I wasn’t an archaeologist, I should have been a spy.

They start by taking you up an elevator to the exhibit floors, where you get a cover for your time at the museum.

As you go through the museum, there are stations for you to test your spy abilities, and once you’re done, it will give you a report on your spy skills.

This was my cover – I thought it was fitting!

Some of the things I thought were most interesting were the exhibits on female spies, and some of the items they used in supporting their missions.

Very cool.

They also had this cute little chestnut, which apparently was used to transport little coded messages.

Adorable!

They also had a fun little exhibit on cyber crimes and spies.

It was a big room that displayed a video all around us on each of the walls, like Professor X’s room in X-Men.

I was pretty bummed that we didn’t get to see more of the museum before it closed, but we ended up having a fun evening returning to the National Mall to take in the views during night.

The Lincoln Memorial looked particularly cool in the velvet darkness.

How cool is that??

We channeled our inner models and snapped some photos in between the columns of the monument, through which you could see the Washington Monument.

And then we discovered that while the front of the Lincoln Memorial was still bustling with people, the sides and back of the monument were totally devoid of tourists.

So we frolicked around the marble columns and waltzed down the corridors like we owned them.

I was happy I wore my flowy linen shorts with the princess-y train, for added dramatic effect.

I also snuck out onto one of the landings to get a better view of the Washington Memorial while Sarah panicked and yelled “Ok that’s far enough!” and refused to take another photo of me when I told her the first one she took was too blurry.

You’ll notice that I’m still carrying my fan.

And that was it for day two in D.C.! We had a full docket of activities, and the following day was no different. We were dedicated to making the most of our time in a city that has a lot to offer.

Check out our visit to more National Treasure sites in a blogpost coming soon to interwebs near you!