Gettysburg…The Battlefield Remembered!

September 19, 2013

One of many battlefield sites

A rifled cannon two mile range

Time has been flying by faster than a speeding train. The road trip from West Springfield… “The Big E” to today has been a busy time for us old travelers. Helen did a good share of the driving down here to Gettysburg. I didn’t plan on letting her drive in a construction area, but before we could switch drivers she was in the middle of road construction with those extra high Jersey Barriers and ten feet on the other side of the road guard rails. This, with traffic going at 60 miles per hour, was nerve racking, but she did just fine. The only time she really got up tight was when a tractor trailer to her left and a another TT came in on her right off a ramp put the squeeze on her. She held her own and plowed on up the middle of them.
Our arrival time in Gettysburg was around 3 pm, actually a day earlier than planed. We checked into our campground and they accommated us for an extra night. I will talk about the North East Truck Camper rally in the next blog.
The Battlefields!

Typical fence on the battlefield

Helen standing next to a Confederate Cannon

There are several ways to tackle the Gettysburg battlefields. By tour bus, by biking, by car and even walking. (Time permitting). We elected to buy the full tour CD and auto drive the route. This a 6000 acre site with several miles of intertwining roads. The CD narrates and lets you pause and walk the different points of interest. It worked out perfectly for us. This we did on Wednesday. Well actually, we did about 3/4 quarters of the battlefields until the sun took its toll on us! We headed back to Gettysburg Campground for a rest. The above describes what we did and below will describe what we saw.
There is so much to learn about a battle that only lasted three days. There were 57,000 soldiers that died in the Gettysburg outskirts. I won’t try and spell out facts, but only I must say it is very dramatic to walk this ground with an amazing 1,400 monuments dedicated to a lot of brave soldiers that died on both sides. Today, we went back and finished the last quarter of the battlefields on our bikes. There is still a very small hilly area to explore near Copp’s Hill. Doing this last quarter on bikes gave us another opportunity to actually feel the terrain. While it does look fairly level there are many swells in the landscape.


Our truck on the end without camper

For souvenirs we got our National Parks cancelation stamp in our NP Passport book. Of course, I picked up a hiking stick pin for my nearly half full hiking stick. (Pride possession) The best souvenir, for me is just being able to visit such a historic site.

That is what we did and saw!