Gettysburg & the National Zoo- Monday, Feb. 18, 2013

After 25 years of regular trips to Gettysburg, you'd think it would be hard to come up with a monument we hadn't seen yet, especially when it's for an Erie County regiment, but that's exactly what we did this morning. The 49th New York Infantry, also known as the 2nd Buffalo Regiment, arrived late to the battle of Gettysburg. They and other VI Corps men marched 33 miles to arrive at the battle late in the afternoon on July 2nd, 1863. They were more or less held in reserve for the rest of the battle. As a result, their monument is in an obscure little hard-to-get-to portion of the field. Neill Ave., a.k.a. "Lost Lane", is one of the hardest to find and least visited portions of the battlefield. It's surrounded by heavily wooded privately owned land, and is comparatively remote. We've asked park rangers before and have basically been told that ya can't get there from here, and every time we've gone looking on our own, we've come to a dead end.

By chance, Scott had stumbled across a website that shows detailed instructions on how to find Neill Avenue. It was posted by a licensed battlefield guide who was showing OTHER guides how to find the place. We parked at the end of Clapsaddle Road, and used Julie's iPhone to see his pictures to follow, as if we were hunting with a treasure map. The trail, if that's what it was, was very unkept. It looked more like a dry, frozen creek bed, and the walk was very uneven. We were grateful that the ground was frozen, since it kept it from being muddy. We had to climb over or under several fallen trees along the path, and felt intimidated by the many threatening "Posted - No Trespassing" signs on each side of the trail. The website assured us that if we followed the direction, we would be on park land, so we plunged ahead. Our efforts were rewarded when we finally came upon the 49th's monument at last, along with other regiment's of Neill's Brigade. It was a hike, to be sure, but it was a nice morning to be out-- chilly but with bright blue skies.

We stopped for some shopping, where Scott picked up some DVDs he had seen yesterday. Julie peeked in at the Homestead Inn, and we dreamed a little of what it would be like to own it. The realtor is asking $310,000, though, and we figure there's at least another $50- $100,000 in repairs that would need to be done after that. Since we don't really have a half million lying around, we decided to drive on.

We went to the National Zoo, where Julie expects to take her kids first. The zoo is very vertical, and we were parked at the bottom. We soon realized we had to start looking for a place to have lunch. We were skipping about half of the zoo on the way uphill, because we needed something to eat (Emma was running out of steam quickly) and we skipped about half of zoo on the way downhill because the girls were so full of energy after eating.

We all agreed that the pandas were worth the stop. Back when Julie and Scott visited this zoo on their honeymoon, they could only see a distant view of the panda's backside, because it wouldn't come out of his cave. Today, there is a much more elaborate panda habitat, where you can see them much closer, with the ability to go inside and see them up close. In fact, the girls will probably long remember that their first views of these pandas were of one right up next to them, pooping in the corner. It then went into the next "room" and washed its butt in it's personal bidet. The views got much nicer when we went outside. One was thrown a large piece of bamboo, and the panda snapped it in half with a loud "crack," and then proceeded to cutely naw on as we watched.

We skipped many of the other exhibits, but we had gone to Amazonia first, and exhibit where you get to peek below the Amazon River and up into the rainforest. On our way out we stopped at the small mammals and the reptiles. Plus Julie got some good information to help her plan her day with her students.

We got caught in traffic trying to get out of Washington, but slowly made our way to Annapolis. We checked in to our hotel, and then went out to explore Old Town Annapolis. Julie wanted to see where the ghost tour starts that she will be going on with her students. We just missed getting to the Visitors' Center, which closed at 5:00. We saw a lot of the quaint buildings in Old Town, though. We went to the Capitol Comic Shop, where Scott and the girls both bought some things. The guy there suggested we try dinner at "Chick & Ruth's Delly" nearby. It was a cool suggestion. The deli was featured on the TV show, "Man vs. Food" for the gigantic 3 lb. burgers and 6 lb. milkshakes they challenge visitors with. We ate a lot less then that, but we enjoyed the atmosphere. It's a very "Annapolis" place. After dark, we drove to the entrance to the Naval Academy, so Julie could say she'd seen it, and past the Maryland state capitol a couple of times, where they were having a rally of some kind. We then went back to the hotel where we could relax, and the girls could swim.