August 15th, Drive to Gettysburg, PA

Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Day 51
Drive from Shenandoah National Park to Gettysburg, PA

This morning Brownie and I tried to do a similar walk to the nice one we did yesterday when we saw the 15 deer. We somehow didn’t do the same walk, and ended up back at the trailer much too soon, and only saw 3 deer. So then we decided to walk to our spot on the rock to see the view again, but about one-tenth of a mile up the trail we practically bumped into a buck in the middle of the trail. A man was taking its photo, so we just went home. Last night the same type of thing happened. We were just trying to walk and there were deer everywhere in our path! They were great to look at, but if you’re just trying to hike through, they kind of got in the way. Never thought I’d say that about deer. The deer in Shenandoah are definitely not afraid of people! They don’t approach you, but they don’t run away either.

Last night we were treated to our favorite 10 point buck with his 5 point friend and his other friend the 8-pointer. I saw the same deer again this morning. They are beautiful and we have so many photos of them, I’m afraid to download them from the camera because then I’ll have to decide which ones to keep and which ones to delete.

We left the campground just as it started drizzling this morning and then we stopped at the Visitors’ Center for the kids to turn in their completed Junior Ranger Booklets. They got their badges, well actually Brianna chose a patch and Sheldon chose a badge. They also both got stickers, which they placed in their Passports. It was nice that they got to choose here. Brianna finished her 12 activities yesterday and she helped Sheldon with the rest of his today, since he had only completed 5 or 6 yesterday. Twelve was a bit much for Sheldon, but Brianna helped him just like a little teacher.

The remainder of the drive on Skyline Drive was nice, but a bit overcast at the beginning. It took over an hour and a half to drive the rest of the way out of the park, since the speed limit is 35 mph, but we’re not complaining because it isn’t the type of road you’d want to drive fast on anyway! By the time we got off of Skyline Drive the sun was out and we were back up to over 80 degrees again. We were much higher in elevation in Shenandoah Park, between about 2500 and 3300 feet. That contributed to the nice cool temperatures! It’s really nothing compared to the 7000-9000 feet in elevation that we were at in the Rocky Mountain Region, but it’s still elevation!

Now we are in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We are staying at a KOA, and this is our last stop on the trip before going back to Camp Wildwood, our property upstate. Tomorrow we are taking a driving tour of Gettysburg. We rented a CD that you put into the car’s CD player and it takes you through a tour of the city and battlefield. The bus tour was far too expensive for us and this one seems more our style anyway. We like to do it our way, but we want to learn something too. Now neither Rodney nor I are into history, so we might not LOVE this park, but so far it is intriguing. We watched a short film here at the KOA which kind of explained what happened during the three-day battle here in July of 1863; the turning point of the Civil War. Now we’ll see what else I pick up tomorrow. No geology or biology today or tomorrow I’m afraid…

I just finished paying two bills I “forgot” about and one had a late fee. Boo Hoo. That’s life away from home I guess. My brother has informed me that I have approximately 50 pounds of mail on my kitchen table. I dread that! But we’ll be home on Monday evening, the 21st of August. A few days at Camp Wildwood will be a nice “in-between” stage for us to re-assimilate into the “real” world. No bills there, but I can get all the stuff out of the camper and do the laundry the normal way, one load at a time with no quarters involved. Then the RV is going to need a good cleaning and hopefully everything is hunky-dorey at the Camp!

There will probably only be one more BLOG, tomorrow, until after we are home on LI. No internet access at the Camp. Later!