August 16th, Gettysburg, PA

Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Day 52
Gettysburg, PA

The Hallock family are not history buffs, that is for sure. We loved Gettysburg and the surrounding orchards and farmland. We loved the city and had lunch in a very nice restaurant. We even enjoyed the battlefields and monuments to some degree. The Visitors’ Center was fabulous and you really could spend a whole day there. It’s like a museum! But the driving tour was, well, BORING. It started off okay, and we really did learn a lot about the Battle of Gettysburg, but it was just way too detailed. All these people and their charges and their positions at this moment and that moment. I really didn’t need all that detail! And why, just why, did our armies fight in straight lines. Didn’t they just know they were going to be cut down by all those little things called bullets? It made no sense!

Toward the end we started getting testy with each other (Rod and I) because we both had heads that were spinning with way too many facts. We thought we were going to have nightmares about it. So, we turned the CD off. The main point is that Gettysburg was a major battle of the Civil War. It was a turning point in the war for the North. We won it. I could have lived with just learning the major things and if the CD just stuck to General Lee and General Mead I would have been OK. The kids were bored but they behaved themselves. Early on in the day we decided this was not the place for them to be trying the Junior Ranger Program, so we didn’t do it here.

We were in awe by the sheer number of monuments here and also for the fact that this is where Lincoln made his famous Gettysburg Address. I just think some people get way too into all the tiny details of the battle. I found the artifacts at the Visitors’ Center/museum very interesting. For example they had a section of rafters from someone’s barn that had been hit by artillery and there was the holes in 8 rafters. There was furniture with bullet holes in it. They even had on display an example of what it looks like when two bullets collide in mid-air. Yes, there were so many bullets flying that there were mid-air collisions! I could only imagine the blood and the screams of the soldiers as they died on this site. 51,000 men were killed, wounded or captured at Gettysburg. That’s just insane.

Tomorrow we are driving back to Berkshire. The next several blogs will be “lists” that I may update from time to time. Once we are home and settled I may have a follow-up blog as well. Hope you enjoyed reading about our trip! We sure enjoyed taking the trip!