Brandywine Valley, Tuesday

Nothing like a good night's sleep to refresh the body and soul. And a wonderful breakfast provided by the hotel was an added bonus. Kudos again to Hampton Inn & Suites - they have hot breakfast items available every morning, as well as make your own waffles, and plenty of healthy choices to get you started off right.

So now, in the cool of the early morning, we were ready to set off for Winterthur. Except, as soon as we walked out the front door of the hotel to get in the car, we were again hit by a blast of hot and humid air. Not as bad as late afternoon of the day before . . . but the air held a promise of oppressive things to come. Best to get moving and enjoy what "cool" of the day there was before we needed to seek the comfort of air-conditioning.

We arrived at Winterthur and started at the Visitors' Center. The nice ladies at the desk suggested we take the garden tram on a trip around the entire estate so that we could get a feel for what the layout of the grounds looked like and make decisions about what gardens we were most interested in visiting. And so that's what we did. We had a wonderful tour guide who shared with us the historical background of the DuPont family, the mansion, and the gardens. Then when we returned to the Visitor's Center, we hopped the next tram and headed out for our first garden stop.

Of course, being children at heart, we knew our first stop was going to be the Enchanted Woods, the garden Henry Francis DuPont designed for his grandchildren to play in. Everything is child size - tables and chairs, benches, water fountains, a playhouse with a thatched roof, a tree house, and many other amazing things to enchant children (and adults who can easily become children again). One of the first things we encountered in the garden was a ring of toadstools - just the right height for young children to sit on - except, except, there was a sign that stated one must "Never ever step inside a fairy ring." Bev has photos to show you just what does happen when a bad "child" disobeys the rules and does step inside. And some photos of mine will show how size and scale of things can be very skewed when one visits an enchanted garden.

Along with the Enchanted Woods, we explored March Bank, the Quarry Garden, and The Glade & Reflecting Pool. And as we were exploring, the cooler morning air was giving way again to the oppressive heat and humidity and we were ready to head inside the mansion to go on a tour. Inside the mansion it was indeed cool and dry and a welcome relief from the outside. We took time to watch a short movie about the DuPonts and the development of Winterthur and then went on a tour of the 5th and 6th floors which the DuPonts used for entertaining.

We decided Mr. DuPont had to have been a bit eccentric. The man never worked a day in his life and lived entirely off his inheritance. After a trip to Shelburne, VT to visit with Electra Havenmeyer Webb (the founder of Shelburne Museum), Mr. DuPont fell in love with Americana art and started collecting whatever he could get his hands on. And as his collection grew, he ran out of space in his house to display everything, so he would just add more rooms to his house to make room for his new acquisitions. He ended up with a 9-floor mansion with 175 rooms - most of which were just to display his collection of Americana art and furniture - and as such were rooms to look at, not rooms that they ever lived in and used.

Weekend guests to the mansion were treated extremely well. A guest would write out a menu the night before for the next morning's breakfast and it was served to the guest in bed by the servants. Your clothes would have been cleaned, pressed, missing buttons replaced, ripped seams restitched, and your shoelaces would even be ironed - all while you had been sleeping at night. During your stay as a guest at Winterthur, although flower arrangements throughout the house were changed daily, you would never see the same flower used twice in any of the bouquets. And of course, the color of the flowers in the bouquets always matched the color of the china used at each meal. After all, Mr. DuPont had 58 different sets of china providing a wide variety of china colors to match the flowers. I told the tour guide he was Martha Stewart before the real Martha was even born.

We want to go back to Winterthur. Perhaps during a different growing season so that we can see different flowers in bloom in the gardens. And also, we'd like to take some of the specialized tours limited to 5 people to see some of the other floors in the house which are not open to general admission ticket holders. So I see another trip to the Brandywine Valley in our future.

We spent most of the day at Winterthur. So when we left the estate, we were ready for very late lunch/early supper and decided to head over to the little city (or big town) of West Chester to see what we could see. We ended up eating at Saladworks where Bev had a buffalo bleu salad and I had a Cobb salad. You pick your basic style salad and can then order from over 50 add-ins and over 20 different kinds of salad dressings. A huge salad, more than enough for a meal, and very, very healthy (especially depending upon what add-ins you pick).

Then it was a walk around the corner to Kiwi Yogurt. Please, please, please. Won't someone please open a Kiwi Yogurt store in Raynham for me and one in Plymouth for Bevie??? Soft, non-fat yogurt in over a dozen different flavors. But all I need in my Raynham Kiwi Yogurt is mango flavor. And fresh pieces of kiwi fruit to sprinkle on top. You pick the cup size you want, fill it with whatever flavor(s) and how much yogurt you want, then put on whatever add-ins your little heart desires. Then they weigh your final creation. It's 49 cents/oz. And the first night we went, both of our dishes weighed in between $8 and $10 dollars each. But remember, we had just had healthy salads for lunch/dinner. And the yogurt is non-fat. Sum total of our calories for the day: zero.

Tomorrow, which is suppose to be the hottest day of the week, we are planning on visiting the Brandywine River Museum (inside and air-conditioned), Phillips Mushroom Farm in Kennett Square (inside and air-conditioned), and the Chadds Ford Winery (inside and air-conditioned). Do you detect a pattern here?