Saturday, October 18, 2008

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

What a place! This morning we got up in our considerably nicer hotel from the night before feeling well rested and ready to be touristy. Right across the street from our hotel is where Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address.
There is a place called Explore and More here for kids to teach them some about the time and well... lots of other stuff! It was great to let the boys just be kids for a bit and you could tell it really did them some good. This is a giant bubble maker.
The hotel we stayed at was right on the main square. We paid more then normal to stay here, but it was a beautiful hotel and we all slept great! I think it was worth it.
We took an audio tour of the Gettyburg battlefields. The boys didn't understand any of it, but we did find little army men for them that were blue and gray and they liked seeing the big guns and statues.
I don't think we could have come here at a more beautiful time...

The first confederate statue erected here was of General Lee. He lost his citizenship and his home over the choice he made to join the confederate side. His home was seized for $93 of back taxes and was later converted to Arlington National Cemetery.
This is at the Pennsylvania monument where you can see all the battlefields and hills they fought on in July of 1863. I can't even imagine! The citizens of the town hid in their cellars during these days. Only one civilian casualty was claimed during America's bloodiest battle to date.
After trying to make one stop we really wanted to do only to find it was closed for the night, we decided to stay here one more night and head along our way tomorrow. Since we were staying, we made the best of it and took a horse-drawn carriage ride through town and learned quite a bit! Saw one building with almost 100 bullet hole marks in the side wall you can still see as well as a morter shell in another building the size of your fist. Our horses name was Bella Star and she tried to eat Joshua's head right after this picture.