Gettysburg 2

Day 2 Remote Posting

I'm rather tired today-long day in the sun and such. Although I am well pleased because I feel as though I better understand the goings on that happen at the Gettysburg.

Today we woke up and headed straight out to the battle field to explore and basically see what we would see.

-Side Note- Yesterday we went to dinner at a German style place. It was pretty fair outside of Gettysburg and I had concerns that it really wouldn't be worth the trip out but it turned out to be the best German food that I have ever at in the States so it was worth it all around.

At first we went up to Oak ridge, North of Gettysburg and saw some of the sites there. It was pretty neat indeed, but a little hard to figure out just how it fit into the rest of every as we were working off just the map to an audio tour. The audio part of the tour that went with that map came only on cd so we didn't buy that bit as our car only has cassette.

Anyway, after Oak ridge we were heading back into to tour as we saw Robert E. Lee's headquarters so we stopped to look in there, just a tiny little museum nothing too crazy. However the gift shop had, among other things an audio tour on cassette so we picked that up and followed it for the rest of the day.

-Side Note- The gift shop also had the flag for Lee's headquarters which is pretty cool. I got one. I'm thinking it would be pretty cool to have the flags from all the countries I've been to and other such things of note that I've actually see a part of.

The audio tour was very very good. It basically walked through the entire battle field and told you who occupied that spot and what happen there and what the generals were thinking and such. It really helped me understand how the battle happen and seeing the actual places made it much more real than a theoretical discussion would.

When I get a chance to post the pictures I will do so, so that you too can see the terrain and get a sense for how it happen and all.

But my gripe with the Civil war has always been that I have never really felt that I was able to get it straight in my mind how the battles and war really happen. I mean I've always known that Gettysburg was the high water mark of the rebellion and that sort of thing but exactly how that all happen I never really got a sense of before. It's like I knew all the details without really have a good overall idea of how it really fit together and that I feel like I really acquired for Gettysburg today.

Anyway after we got back from the battle field tour-it took like 4 hours because the tape was about 2 hours long and at various spots we all got out of the car so that max could run around and we could see some of the more interesting sites (Be sure to look for pictures of such events)-we came back to the room for just long enough for me to label all the pictures so that I wouldn't forget what they are of then we set out on the town.

We stopped at a shop that had some nifty T-Shirts, I got a cool one of a bayonet charge for me and one of Picket's charge for Jen (Perhaps I'll post pictures of them later on). Max got his second mini cannon for the trip. Then we went to a place called the Gingerbread man where I had the Philly cheese steak. It was good but not as good as the German food from last night so in comparison it was simply ok-I enjoyed it though.

After food we walked around the a bit more of the town, saw some shops, I got a book of maps that explains the various points of interest and what was around during the time, exactly the sort of thing that I like in regards to understanding wars.

We then walked to the center of town, where there is a traffic circle and a statue of Lincoln talking to a flabbergasted modern man holding a copy of the hand written version of the Gettysburg address, the statue is entitled "Return Visit"-No pictures of that one, by this time I've used up the batteries on both my and mom's cameras chiefly because Max likes to flip switches and my battery never really charged.

After all this walking we returned to the room but not before getting ice cream. I got chocolate peanut butter-very tasty indeed.

I'm rather happy on today because I feel as though I really understand how the battle of Gettysburg happen, which was my personal goal for the trip.

Oh my phone screen broke today, which bites super hard, because while I did kinda have the feeling that a few things about my phone aren't how they should be, I kinda needed that phone, but I guess these things happen, I guess. But that means that I don't have any body's numbers and I realize I could use facebook's creepy phonebook dealie to look up some numbers but if I don't call any of you for a bit you know why-also I can't spend or receive text messages so if I don't respond see above.

Anyway at this point I've most likely bored you all enough with my writing and everybody else is asleep so I shall close for today.