Gettysburg

John and I spent two days in Gettysburg what a learning experience!! We did an 18-mile auto tour of the battlefield. It is unbelievable how beautiful the area is and at the very same time hard to imagine the horror of all those soldiers dying in the battlefields it is unbelievable how many men died. During Pickett’s charge more than 5000 men died in one hour. In total 51,000 men either; died, were captured/missing or wounded in a three-day battle beginning July 1 ending on July 3, 1863. We also did a ranger led tour of the Gettysburg Cemetery. I found one (of course there were many others) interesting fact of the Gettysburg Cemetery. This cemetery was to be a Union Soldiers Cemetery and several years’ later historians found that there are two Confederate Soldiers who are buried at Gettysburg. Know one really knows how/why this happened. One speculation is they had taken a dead union soldiers clothing or they were wounded and claimed to be union to get better medical care…. In any case it was to be determined that they would remain in the Gettysburg Cemetery. We also saw the 360-foot Cyclorama painting of Pickett’s Charge it is an original painting by Paul Phillippoteaux it is awesome. It is 121 years old and we feel very lucky to have seen it, this November the exhibit will be closed until 2007, they are going to attempt to restore the painting.
We found the Harley Davidson Factory in York, PA and took a factory tour. Pretty cool
We also toured the Boyd’s Bears “Factory” with boomer friends Larry & Claudia King…

Coming Attractions:
Lancaster, PA Dutch Country