Today is the beginning of catching up. I did all the ironing this morning after breakfast. Threw the sheets from Kelly’s bed in the washer first thing. Had a few small things to do in the shed. It’s a beautiful day -sunny right now and about 70*. I did call the doctor’s office (specialist for my wrist) but they don’t have anything open before my scheduled appointment. She told me to call every week or so to see if anything has opened up. I was lifting something this morning and my wrist popped – It hurt so bad I thought it was going to fall off! 🙂 I’ll just see what happens next.
Beautiful day.
Vacation – here we go! It felt strange packing the car when it was parked in the front yard! Kelly parked hers close to the porch, near the house. I was sure it would be fine there. We got everything loaded and I secured the house . The car had a full gas tank, we were loaded down with snacks and cold drinks, and Kelly had her pillow! Of we went! It was sunny and traffic was light. Kelly is a good navigator and she picked a good route for us to take from the turnpike down to Gettysburg. We got off at Exit 201 – Blue Mountain. We took Route 997 south then picked up Route 30. It was a beautiful drive, very rural, and lots of nice little towns to drive through. We got to Gettysburg about 11am. It was too early to check into the motel so we drove through town and into the battlefields. We stopped at a parking lot and had some leftover pizza from supper the night before before we started into our sight-seeing.
The first monument we stopped at!
We did stop at the Diorama gift shop. I was looking for a President Lincoln rubber ducky, since I have a George Washington one. That was the first thing – so Lincoln sat on the dash and directed our entire visit. He did good. We drove up and down a few streets plus around the battlefields for about an hour. Then we went to the National Military Park and Visitor’s Center. My friend Diane asked us to get a stamp for her daughter Shannon’s National Park Passport for Gettysburg 250, which we did. Then we bought tickets for the Gettysburg film, the Cyclorama, and the museum. All three were excellent. We learned a lot. The Cyclorama came alive – had smoke when the guns went off and campfires lit up.
The Cyclorama was painted very long ago!
The Gettysburg Cyclorama is 42 feet high and 377 feet in circumference, making it one of the largest free-standing paintings in North America
The Museum had a lot of artifacts, flags, pictures, and explanations. Kelly found a Brigade flag that listed Cold Harbor (if you read Letters to Mary you will know the significance). A lot of it was very moving and for sure informative.
A. Lincoln….
I didn’t realize that the battlefield drums had such ornate pictures on them.
Field flag.…
(Above flag.)
United flag… (above)
Unrecognized…
Tent on left – enlisted men. On right, officers.
“Cold Harbor” – in the top middle, second one down.
Union artifacts
Charleston succeeded from the union.
I wanted to stop at the Gettysburg Museum of History – that is the museum who sponsors JD Huitt and the History Traveler (History Underground). They were having a huge fundraiser for the museum on Saturday and I was hoping I would maybe get to see him and/or a few other people from that YouTube channel that I’ve been watching for a few years. I didn’t get to see JD but I did see Jared Frederick from REEL HISTORY. He was standing right beside me. He said he would take JD’s name badge over to him – I wanted to say “Wait! I’ll do that!” Haha. We hung around for about 5 minutes but didn’t see anyone else I recognized. I left an autographed copy of Letters to Mary for JD and Eric (owner and curator of Gettysburg Museum of History).
Very big deal!
Here at last…
The new annex will be in the building directly to the left in the photo.
Seemed like my car just kept being drawn to the battlefields! We were there so much of the time. One of us would recognize a statue in the park and get excited that we remembered it, so we’d weave our way around trying to get to it. There is a prescribed direction – one way roads and turns – and you can be right across from something and have to make a dozen turns to get to it. But it was fun. We spent a lot of time there. And it was such a beautiful weekend! The mountains and trees and fields were dotted with color and scattered with fallen leaves. Everything was so picturesque. Too bad I’m not the greatest at taking pictures. Kelly is far better. She has some good pictures – but we didn’t get to trade and share photos. If she sends me some I’ll post them later. We really don’t know exactly what photos each other has.
More battlefield photos later….
We did stop at General Meade’s headquarters/field hospital – but it was closed. It ended up being open on Saturday so we went in and got information – but didn’t take more pictures. But the guide there was very informative! Talked a lot about the house, the owner and what happened after the 3 day battle.
Meade’s headquarters, then a field hospital for a few days.
Kelly exploring
Back and side.
Site marker but too dark to read it.
Bedroom
Same – from other window.
Kitchen – where the planning took place.
We finally went over to the motel and checked in – got settled and organized, then went back into town for supper. We chose the Steinwehr Diner (on Steinwehr street, of course!). It has good service, good food, and very reasonable prices. Kelly had breakfast and I had Spaghetti, meatballs, a salad and garlic toast. Couldn’t finish it all. We were ready to settle in and relax. We packed a lot into that first day! So back to the motel….
Photo from web page.
America’s Best motel
QUOTE of the DAY:
PEANUTS?
Tomorrow October 28th is:
National Chocolate Day; National First Responders Day; Wild Foods day; International Animation Day; Plush Animal Lovers Day.
I LOVE chocolate. I’ll take that one. And Snoopy/gang are animated so that’s great! And Chase has an amazing collection of plush animals! God bless…
On this day in History:
It’s A Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! Was Released On Oct 27th 1966 Happy 60th Anniversary!
Scripture:
Cool Photo:
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