Vacation: Gettysburg, PA

We spent seven hours at the Gettysburg Battlefield. Touring the museum, which included a film and a cyclorama, took four hours.

The cyclorama was a painting from 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux. It measured 367 feet long and 42 feet high and featured the third day of the battle. Until we were told about the cyclorama, we had no idea we were looking at a painting that was more than a hundred years old.

The museum was very informative – there was a reason we spent so much time there. We learned lots of history and interesting tidbits about the town itself, the people involved and, of course, the battle.

Once we started driving around the battlefield, we saw the places we have only ever read about. Places like Little Round Top

and the Devil’s Den

and Pickett’s Charge.

We learned that one in four Confederate soldiers who died at Gettysburg were from North Carolina. And I saw a token someone had left for those soldiers.

Monuments rest all over the battlefield. My favorites were the ones honoring the soldiers from Virginia

and the one honoring Longstreet.

We drove past the Texas monument but didn’t get a chance to read it. It resembled the marker at Antietam – both made of pink Texas granite. I looked it up on the web and found what was written on the marker.

Vacation: Hershey, PA

Our next stop was Hershey, otherwise known as “Chocolate Town.”

We took the chocolate tour and the trolley tour.

The trolley tour was great. We learned a lot about Milton Hershey, but we also learned a lot about the Milton Hershey School. The school was established for socially and financially underprivileged boys and girls. They stay in homes, beautiful homes, with house parents – a married couple who are paid by the trust that runs the school – to provide the children with a loving home. That would be a pretty sweet job.

I think it would also be fantastic to be the librarian at the school. Since the school is private and funded by a trust worth billions of dollars, you could almost have anything you wanted.

We also happened to see the creator of Reese’s Pieces while we were on the tour. That was pretty cool.

The street lights in downtown Hershey are kisses, both wrapped

and unwrapped.

We visited the Hotel Hershey, too.

Well … the lobby anyway. Quite nice. I would recommend staying if you can afford it. You apparently get your choice of a milk or dark chocolate upon your arrival.

From there, we drove to Gettysburg where we made a quick stop at Boyd’s Bear Country. I had to visit there because a friend of mine collects the bears.

The next day we went to the battlefield.

Vacation: Valley Forge

A dreary, rainy, cold day greeted us for our drive into Pennsylvania. When we arrived at Valley Forge it had gotten even colder and was raining even harder.

Valley Forge has been transformed into a lovely park since it became an historic site.


The first thing Mom and I learned was that Valley Forge was not the worst winter the army spent during the war – that was in Morristown – but it is the most well-known.

The second thing we learned was the the “winter” in Valley Forge was actually from December of 1777 to June of 1778. We both always thought it was November to March.

The final thing we learned was that almost 2,000 wooden huts were built by the soldiers for use by the army during that winter. When George Washington was there during the American Revolution, the site would have been much more barren and less green. The trees in the area in 1777-78 would have been cut down for firewood and the huts.


The weather turned truly sour on us at Washington’s Headquarters. He leased the home from Isaac Potts and used it as the “Pentagon of its time.”


Most of the furniture is replicas, but the bannister is original. Imagine how much history that wood has seen? George Washington’s hand used that bannister … and Martha … and Alexander Hamilton.


And then I used it on my own way upstairs. Wow.

We left his headquarters and walked over to the “lifeguard huts.”

These were the cabins of the men whose job it was to protect George Washington – his life guard. The tradition of this unit continues as the soldiers who serve at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

By the time we returned to the car, Mom and I were soaked clean through and completely frozen. Imagining the soldiers in little wooden huts with one fireplace during the long winter of 1777-78 gave me a renewed appreciation for the men and women who fought in the American Revolution.

Vacation: Baltimore

We went to the National Aquarium the next day. This was a lot of fun. We saw a 4-D movie – 3-D glasses along with snow, bubbles and spritzes of water – and the dolphin show.


The exhibits were interesting. They even had month-old baby seahorses! They were so tiny. I have no idea how they survive in the wild.

The rainforest exhibit had a two-toed sloth who actually started moving while we were there. It was beautiful!


They also had a special exhibit about jellyfish which was fascinating. The purpose of the exhibit was to demonstrate how jellies have taken over locations where they are not native and how destructive that is to the environment. They even had some jellies there. They look so beautiful.



And the Australia exhibit was great, too. How some of those animals survive the weather extremes in Australia, I will never fully understand. They had a fish that spit water to knock bugs off low-hanging leaves! And even though we didn’t get to hear the kookaburra laugh, we did get to see one.

Our next stop of the day was Fort McHenry. Mom and I had been there before, but we didn’t really remember much of it.

When we got there, the Pride of Baltimore II was sailing in the harbor. Except for the cargo ships, other vessels and the bridge in the background, this could be a scene straight from the 1800s.


We also managed to be there to see the flag-changing ceremony.



The weirdest thing is the statue of Orpheus with the Awkward Foot on the grounds outside the fort. The statue was the winning submission in a contest to mark the centennial of the writing of “The Star-spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key.


What in the world does that have to do with the flag? Or the poem? So strange.

We spent the next day lazing around the hotel and going to the movies.