Gettysburg- Tuesday, March 22, 2016

We went to the Breakfast Cottage, which is the house attached to our hotel, but had to rotate to breakfast, so we always had doggie babysitters in the room.  For the most part, the dogs have been very good, though we don't want to take chances leaving them alone.  After breakfast, we had a quick stop at the Visitor Center at the National Battlefield in order for Scott to pick up a copy of a new autotour on CD.  It's been out since the 150th anniversary, 3 years ago, and was made by the people who made the documentary called "The Gettysburg Story."   Scott picked up the DVD of the movie when he was here a few weeks ago, and figured it was time to give the new tour a try.

Instead of starting the tour right away, we first went to Big Round Top.  We've only been up it a few times before, and it's something Julie's been wanting to do.   It's quite a little hike to the top, especially where the trail has not been taken good care of, but we enjoyed it.  The view isn't great from the top because the trees are so thick, but we got to see about a dozen big turkey buzzards perched in the treetops (which were basically at eye level to us now).   Every once in a while, one would float off the branch and circle around us.

The weather today was cool, in the high 40s, but bright and sunny and so it was enjoyable to be outside.   When we got back to the car, we started the official tour.  The set comes with three discs and a book, and each disc presents one day of the battle.  We started with Day One and headed out to the northwest side of town.   We had the dogs pose for a picture with "Sallie" on the 11th Pennsylvania monument.  She was a dog who was the mascot of that regiment, and she stood vigil by the soldiers after they had been wounded or killed here.  We were planning on stopping by that monument anyway, but the tour's narrator, actor Steven Lang from the movie  Gettysburg, also pointed her out as part of the tour.

He hit the highlights of July 1st on the tour, but when it was time to start the second disc, it was getting close to lunch time.   We went to Wendy's for lunch, and since that was near Walmart, we decided to pick up a couple of necessities there.

There were a couple of places that Julie wanted to revisit that we haven't been to much before.  From Confederate Ave., we went down Berdan Ave to the sharpshooters monument.   She didn't remember being there before, and Scott agreed that it had probably been at least more than twenty years since we had.  We also took a trip to Sachs covered bridge, which is very pretty, but is certainly off the beaten path.  We've only been there maybe once before.  The girls and dogs seemed to have fun exploring.

We then decided to spend the next part of the afternoon shopping.  We parked by the Wills House in the square in the middle of town.  It's where Lincoln stayed when he was in town, and Anna was the first to point out that this place was Lincoln's Gettysburg address.  We went down the streets around the town square like following the four spokes of a wheel.  We were able to visit quite a few shops this way, with at least one person babysitting the dogs outside while a few of us went in.  Julie got a birdhouse made from a large gourd, and Scott got some new sneakers he really needed.

Since we were near there, we stopped at the 154th NY's monument.  Mark Dunkelman has recently replaced the original painting with a version on kiln baked glass that is supposed to be able to last longer without fading.  At this time of day, late afternoon, it was a little to reflective and hard to see, but we were able to spot a few details that seem to have changed from the mural's original version.  While we were there, a licensed battlefield guide stopped to show a family the mural.  Scott thanked him for bringing people to this otherwise forgotten corner of the battlefield, and had a chat with them.

We had a pit stop at the hotel, and the plan was to continue with the 2nd day's tour CD, but our car wouldn't start.  Julie had taken it to be serviced a few weeks ago, in order to take care of an apparent computer problem.    The car is telling us that it's coolant is overheating, but the car hasn't been running for some time now.   We ordered Domino's pizza for dinner, which was part of the plan anyway, but now we're stuck here for the night.