Gettysburg

This weekend we went north up to Gettysburg. We decided to drive to Pennsylvania on Friday night and camp somewhere so that we'd have a shorter drive on Saturday morning. We were hoping to spend Saturday night in a campground again and see a bit of Amish country and find a church on Sunday. I was in charge of packing us, and in case any of you didn't know, I'm not the world's greatest packer. I always seem to forget the important stuff. On our last camping trip, I forgot jackets for the whole family and we all froze. Anyway...

So we're driving up on Friday talking about all the fun things we're going to do that weekend. Realization #1: I forgot to pack Ty's church clothes. Oops. I knew that I pulled them out of the closet, but I definitely left them laying on the bed. So, we stopped at a Marshall's in Maryland and picked up Ty some slacks, a shirt, and tie.

We camped Friday night just south of the Gettysburg battlefield. Somehow Ty always seems to take me camping in the rain at least once a year. This was that time. It was pouring and it poured all night long. Thankfully, we didn't have a tent to set up because we had planned on sleeping in an air mattress in our truck's camper shell. However, we discovered in the middle of the night that there were several leaks in the camper shell since our feet were completely wet. Somewhere about this time I had realization #2: I forgot to pack my arthritis medicine. Big oops.

Saturday morning we went to the Gettysburg battlefield museum for several hours. Realization #3: I forgot to pack the camera. Biggest oops. I tried really hard not to be too grumpy or focus on how sore, tired, and dirty I was. You'd have to ask Ty how that turned out. Aside from that, we enjoyed learning about the strategies each side employed and the events that led up to the battle. We were in the museum for a couple hours and could have been there for several more. Information overload. But it was awesome. Here are some of the things we saw, courtesy of the World Wide Web:

The Gettysburg Cyclorama: a 360-degree oil on canvas painted in 1883

The Pennsylvania Memorial

The Gettysburg Cemetery

Some more monuments with Big Round Top and Little Round Top in the distance

By late afternoon, we were all exhausted and decided to cut the trip short. We drove home that night to sleep in our own beds. Even though the trip was a bit rough, I am so glad we made it there. Ty said that Gettysburg has been his favorite place to see so far. There was definitely a powerful spirit everywhere as we walked on the ground where so many thousands of men were injured or killed.