At this point in our journey, we have finally started moving back west. Although we still have another several weeks on the road we are having such a good time that it’s a little sad to think that it will soon come to an end.
We spent the night in Lancaster – home of the Amish/Mennonite communities – and spent some time during the day driving around and seeing the countryside and the farms - very picturesque. We continued to make our way west driving into Gettysburg in the afternoon. Much of the Gettysburg battlefield is part of a national monument today with tributes of all shapes, sizes and types included to honor our forefathers and the men that fought and died there. There is a fantastic visitor center that we enjoyed. It has a 19th century cyclorama that displays scenes of Pickett’s Charge which was Lee’s final effort to defeat the Union Army in the battle. They say that there were over 50,000 men either killed or wounded in the 3 day battle at Gettysburg. We visited the national cemetery that is located on one of the battlefields which was the site of, among other things, Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. It’s startling to see so many unmarked graves. Like many of the other battlefields we’ve seen it’s hard to get your head around the historic battles and the related death and bloodshed contrasted with the beautiful countryside that we see in these same places today. The visitor’s center and museum at Gettysburg are perhaps the best we’ve seen. Between the cyclorama which was originally painted in the 1880’s and restored several years ago and the first rate museum which showcased all sorts of things related to the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg, we really enjoyed the stop here and feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit.
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| Row's of largely unmarked graves. The remains of soliders were taken from battlefield graves and reinterred here in a national cemetery. |
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| Monument near the site where Lincoln delivered the Gettsburg Address |
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