When we drove across the country in 2012, it worked out that we were at the Jefferson Expansion National Monument (aka the St. Louis Arch) on July 12, which is Steve’s birthday. Steve felt the need to gloat to me the entire drive home (which lasted 2 more days) about how he had a birthday stamp and I didn’t. If you know me, you know that my competitive instincts kicked right in. If you don’t know me, just know that this was killing me inside and Steve darn well knew it too.
We have the rule that we can’t go to a new park (or get the stamp) without the other one of us there as well. So Steve’s gloating sort of backfired. There is one National Historic Site about a half hour away from our house – it’s the closest park site to us. For a few years now, we have had all sites in the mid-Atlantic region done, except for just this one in our home state. I was never going to agree to go until we could go on my birthday. This created a problem because with Steve being a teacher, we couldn’t go on October 22nd until it was on a Saturday, which finally happened this year! I had to endure four years of Steve’s gloating about this stamp, but it is worth it to finally have a birthday stamp (#222 on 10/22!), and I get the last laugh because it was in the National Park Service’s centennial year, which made it extra special for me!
That story aside – Hampton National Historic Site is a beautiful house dating back to the early generations of the Ridgley family. They were filthy rich through the iron industry, and their wealth was prominently displayed throughout the home. I should have written this blog sooner than I am now because I’m forgetting some of the facts already, but I think it took 7 years to build this massive house. Hampton also has a bit of a dark history to it, although unconfirmed, about the mistreatment of their slaves. We did a volunteer-led tour which was very interesting and the lady knew her stuff about the large Ridgely family. It was hard to keep them all straight, but it helped that we would end up in the main hall with the pictures of the family members when she was switching gears to another branch of their tree! All told, this was another interesting park site with a great tour!
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