Gettysburg

After leaving DC, we drove to Pennsylvania to visit Gettysburg.  We first went to the Visitors Center.  It looks like a big beautiful barn in keeping with the efforts to preserve this entire area to look like it did during the civil war.   It houses a nice museum that explains in detail all of the events leading up to the battle, the three days of the battle itself, and the aftermath, including Lincoln's powerful and always touching "Gettysburg Address".  At the end of the museum there is a room where the famous and short address is etched onto the glass of a window and you can see through it to the battlefield beyond.  Quite nice.


Of course the boys were fascinated by everything.


The museum was very good at showing both sides of the war and their objectives and strategies all along the way.  Overall, I learned a lot, mostly that the whole Civil War was very, very complex, but also that it was something that had to happen before true unity could ever come into play in this great nation of ours.



I didn't really understand much about battle plans and war strategies, but this wall of actual photographs of the men who fought and died here, both Union and Confederate, really did get to me - to look into their faces and wonder about their lives, their motivation for fighting, and what they had been through.


And we couldn't resist getting our picture with good ol' Honest Abe himself.


But to see Gettysburg, you need to do much more than visit a museum.  You need to get in your car and drive through it - the town itself and the battlefields all around the besieged little town.  Yes, i said battle fields,  What I hadn't realized before is that Gettysburg is not just one battle field, and it didn't just happen one day.  It took place over three days and there were several battlefields spread throughout the area.  It was extremely complicated.


In order to see Gettysburg, you need to get out and explore.  There are cannons and monuments EVERYWHERE!  There are dozens and dozens and dozens of monuments and statues and memorials all over the area.


The machine!



They say the best way to see Gettysburg is to hire a guide to ride along with you in your vehicle to point out all the important places and explain the battle to you.  They are supposed to be very good.  Well, we decided to do the next best thing.  My parents bought a CD at the gift shop that basically narrates the tour for you, telling you where to turn and where to look.  It was dramatized and we could hear the sounds of battle and cannons.  It was actually quite good.


We drove slowly and anytime we wanted we could hit pause and get out for a while.



It is really a beautiful area - so calm and peaceful now.


But it has also been preserved so well that it is easy to picture in your mind the troops all lined up, preparing themselves for the battle ahead.



The kids loved all the cannons!



One of the largest monuments, erected to commorate the 75th anniversary of the battle, burns an eternal flame representing unity.  At the dedication of this monument all of the surviving veterans of the battle of Gettysburg on both sides were invited to come and the government paid all travel expenses.  They were all in their 90s or older.  That must have been quite a meeting!

The map!



The little town of Gettysburg itself is quite darling.  Many of the homes and buildings of the period are still standing and are marked with a brass plaque.


What a great house!  I love the buntings and the gingerbread and the hydrengas!


One civilian was killed at Gettysburg - a woman who was hit by a stray bullet that came right through a closed door.

More battlefields which were just that - fields and farms.  Both sides and planned on engaging someplace else, but had suddenly come upon each other here at Gettysburg so this is where the battles ensued.

Driving through the countryside.



Another monument...


and still more monuments.


And farms and more farms, each one more charming than the last.


We stopped a Little Round Top, where a very decisive battle took place that turned the course of the war.

Nathan, our history buff, added more where the CD left off.  It is so nice to have a historian in the family to tell us all this cool stuff.


We could inagine the armies fighting for control of this hill.  The Union soldiers claimed it first and took their position, and it was easy to picture the confederate soldiers scaling up the side of the rocky hill, and being picked off by the guns and cannon up here above.



It also offered a great view of the whole area.



We even say a few reenactors camping out, waiting for some battle to begin.  The boys ALL decided that they wanted to be civil war reenactors when they grow up.  Too bad there isn't a whole lot of that kind of thing in California.


By the time our 2 hour CD guided tour was done, it was dark and we were pretty hungry, so we drove into town.  It was so charming and crawling with folks in period dress.


Apparently, ghost tours are a big thing here in Gettysburg - which I guess makes sense.  You can walk around the old town, or ride a buggy, looking for ghosts of fallen soldiers who never could rest in peace.  We were more interested in looking for some souvenirs and some grub, and if we found some ghosts, that that would be a plus.


It was fun exploring the little shops downtown at night.  The Twins decided to be civil war slodiers for halloween (Dylan a Yank and Derek a Confederate) so we had to get them all geared up for the ultimate brother against brother.




Finally we found the perfect place to eat, O'Rourke's Family Eatery and Spirits - and we found a few confederate ghosts hanging out there who let us take a picture with them.


The good old Irish cuisine was amazing, and we sat outside so we could take in all the ambiance of the streets of Gettysburg at night.  I had the corned beef on rye.  It was fabulous!


But we left room for ice cream at G's which is in a real Civil War era building.  The ice cream was completely homemade and you could absolutely tell! SO yummy.




There was an old well that the kids were fascinated with the well outside...


and had fun playing a game where you swing a ring on a string (say that 5 times fast) to try to get it on a hook.

We really, really enjoyed Gettysburg!  We had been to Arlington just that morning, so really the day kind of had a theme to it, I suppose.  We learned a lot and got a good understanding of the Civil War. It was so nice after the crazy exhausting hustle of DC to sit and relax and enjoy the beautiful country side and then spend an evening in a small town on a porch with some homemade ice cream.

Paying our Respects at Arlington

By Saturday morning we were so ready to be done with DC, but we had just 2 more stops that we couldn't leave without seeing.

The Pentagon was not one of them. We were all perfectly happy to drive past it. "Hey, there's the Pentagon." "Cool."

No, the first place that we needed to see was Arlington National Cemetery.

It was huge and the headstones went on forever - proud Americans who fought for this country and offered their all for the cause of freedom.

I got a different feeling here than I had at Normandy which surprised me. My feelings of grief were so much stronger there, but here I felt more peace. I think that was because at Normandy all of those headstones were for soldiers who had died in just a matter of 3 days on that very spot of ground - such a huge a sudden loss, even if it did change the tide of WWII and lead to ultimate glorious victory. It was profoundly heart-wrenching to think about.

I think it comforted me here at Arlington that while many of these tombstones were placed over soldiers who died in battle, many of the men and women buried here survived war and went on to lead long happy lives. There are soldiers from every war and conflict in American history buried here. All deserve our gratitude and honor.

We hiked up to JKF's burial place to see the eternal flame.

The view from up there was wonderful! It was a misty day, but we could still easily make out the Washington Monument and the Capitol.

Here you can see right into the back of the Jefferson Memorial just over the river from the cemetery.

Then it started to rain!

It stared pouring down and the tombstones all got darker as they became soaked.

We were way out into the cemetery by then and there was no where to run for cover, so we just kept on going in the rain.

We arrived at the Tomb of the Unknowns just as they were finishing off the changing of the guard. We were kind of bummed to have missed it, but we stayed and watched the fresh guard take his march back and forth across the pad in front of the tomb. He takes exactly 21 steps, stops for 21 seconds, turns toward the tomb for 21 seconds, turns again, moves his gun to the side away from the tomb and walks back across with 21 steps again.

Twenty one represents a 21 gun salute which is the highest honor given to heroes, and the gun is always on the side of the audience away from the tomb to show that the guard will always protect the tomb. The guard does not march, but glides so smoothly that his head and gun don't bobble at all, and his serious expression does not change at all. It is mesmerizing to watch him pace back and forth.

We were glad we stayed because there was suddenly some activity, and a guard came out and announced that they would now have a wreath ceremony with a wreath presented by some family.

It was so interesting to watch as the family came out to watch as the old wreath was removed from the stand in front of the tomb, and replaced with their beautiful wreath.

Then everyone saluted as Taps was played on the bugle. It was beautiful and gave me goosebumps to hear taps played in honor of all those who gave their lives for freedom, especially on an overcast, misty somber day.

Within a few moments of the end of the wreath ceremony, a guard came out one more and announced that there would be a second wreath ceremony.

This time the wreath was laid on behalf of a Boy Scout troop, and it was done exactly as the first one was done, only they took the wreath that had just been laid a few minutes before and placed it around on the other side of the tomb.

I thought it was so cool that those scouts did that. What a wonderful experience for them. I loved seeing them stand at attention and salute like that as Taps was played once again. I wish my boys could do that?

These guards, or sentinels, take their job very seriously. They take great care to do everything with precision and exactness, even when no one is there watching when the cemetery is closed. They are there guarding the tomb 24 hours a day every day of every year. They even keep it up during hurricanes and severe snow storms and feel it an honor to be out there.

The Tomb of the Unknowns represents every soldier who was killed in battle and their bodies were never identified and returned to their families. They are those who truly did give their all for their country - not only their lives but their identities as well, and for this they are given the highest honor possible, by these sentinels, and hopefully from us as well.

And before we left, there was another changing of the guards. It was beautiful to watch.

The salute.

Their vigilant watch over the tomb continues.

I am so grateful that this nation honors our heroes this way, and I am glad my children were able to see this. I hope they felt some of what I felt here.

In the back there is a large marble amphitheater that I suppose is used for funerals and memorials.

Not sure who the big marble throne is for since at funerals the guest of honor is usually not seated.

It kept raining so we decided it was time to head out.

Heading over the bridge in the rain near the Lincoln Monument.

We took some back roads through the city and drove past the National Catherdral. The homes were so beautiful! I loved the look of those tree-lined neighborhoods, but the rain and the huge RV meant we didn't stop for decent pictures.

This was the last thing we had to see before leaving DC - the temple! It is beautiful! It was so breath-taking when we first saw it, jutting up out of the trees into the cloudy sky. It reminds me in some ways of the San Diego temple as it is striking in the same way.

Of course, the rainy weather made for some pretty lousy pictures, so this was the best one I could get.

We did visit the Visitors Center which was nicely done.

They had what looked like a full house inside the visitors center, with a full kitchen and living room. You could curl up on the couch to watch the "I am a Mormon" spots on the TV, or get on the family computer to do some family history. The kids thought that was pretty cool, and I had to drag them away.