Gettysburg (9/10/2015)

After our day off yesterday, we were ready to take on Gettysburg today.  In the rain.  We got an 11:15 narrated bus tour, on an enclosed bus.  The double decker bus, with the open top, stopped back in the Visitor Center while we were waiting to get on ours, and they switched to an enclosed one too.  Many of the passengers were soaked, so we were glad not to be amongst that group. We browsed around the gift shop while we waited for our tour, and Joe found what might be a replacement for his "Authentic Personnel" hat. (We didn't buy it, but it looks good, doesn't it?)

  Our tour was good, although I need to refresh my Gettysburg history because I don't remember too much about the significance of the battles fought here.  And the rain prevented us from getting any good pictures, too many raindrops on the window.  But the guide made it real, and we saw many of the 2000 monuments and historical markers, but not near all of them.  After the tour was over, we drove back through part of it and did get a few pictures.

"The monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield commemorate the July 1 to 3, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Most are located within Gettysburg National Military Park; others are on private land at battle sites in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Together, they represent "one of the largest collections of outdoor sculpture in the world." . . . As of 2008, the National Park Service unit managed 1,320 monuments and markers, 410 cannons, 148 historic buildings, and 41 miles (66 km) of roads (8 miles of them, unpaved)."

You can see in the photo above there are many of these monuments, some of which are along the lines of the battlefield, almost in a row.  There is a monument for every state that fought in these battles, and many monuments representing a particular officer, battery, company, etc. 

Our drive to Gettysburg took us through some nice Pennsylvania farm country, looks like many of the corn and bean crops are close to harvest.  This part of Pennsylvania is rolling hills, very pretty.

We did stop at one gift shop next to where we parked for lunch, and we drove by a place that had a lot of neat gourds hanging from the rafters.  Joe is still fascinated by gourds and trying to make them into birdhouses, so he got a picture of them.

We got back to camp and re-evaluated our travel agenda.  Joe really wants to go to Washington DC, so he got some information about bus tours there and found a campground in College Park, Maryland, that will probably work as our base, so it looks like that is where we will be headed tomorrow.

About 5:45, we drove into New Cumberland, only about 10 miles from our campground, and met Brian Clayton for dinner.  Unfortunately, his family did not get to join us, but we had a nice visit with Brian, and a nice steak dinner (thank you again, Brian).  On our way home, we saw 4 deer, so it was good to see some wildlife again. 

The rain kept up most of the day, intermittently in the evening.  But when we got to the camper, it was chilly and we kicked the furnace on.  Supposed to get down in the 60s here tonight, then I think we are supposed to stay in the 70s for a while.  That will be nice.  Summer may be over back here.