Our summer travels took us to Virginia for a couple of days. After a decade, we finally reconnected with Judy and Mike Wodynski in person. Last summer Judy left Nantucket (where we tried to visit them, really) to become the development officer at Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia.Knowing we love to visit historic sites, Judy gave us the full tour of Morven Park. Morven was the model farm home of Westmoreland Davis, Virginia's 55th Governor. Knowing that New Jersey governors used to reside in Morven, I wondered if there was a connection. In Scottish, the term "morven" means shangri-la. It is actually a fairly common name for places.
Morven Park is an 1100 acre oasis in Virginia. Hard to believe we were only an hour outside of Washington, DC. In addition to the mansion, it is a world class equestrian center, it has many trails and great gardens and places to picnic. It has a Civil War Hut site, which is still used by re-enactors at different times of the year. Archaeological research is taking place at that location. The mansion is also home to the Museum of Hounds and Hunting -- a collection of items related to fox hunting. They are also home to a therapeutic riding clinic and a race track. On the tour of the mansion we learned about the history of Westmoreland Davis and of the mansion itself. Westmoreland learned a lot about farming while living on his estate, and shared his knowledge with others in the Southern Planter, a farming journal he purchased. The house itself has quite a history. It was built in different sections and has 9 different staircases. There are some great pictures of the interior on the website.
Every once in a while it is nice to include a picture of us. These lions reminded me of the TSC lion.
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