Gettysburg- Thursday, April 8, 2021

     Today was a very active day of shopping and battlefielding.  We started by going to Devil's Den again.  Emma had seen it in the dark, but we thought she would probably like climbing on the enormous boulders in the daytime.  She did enjoy it, and we even got her to pose where the body of the Confederate "sharpshooter" had been moved two days after the battle for a now famous picture.  It was a little gruesome, but that story was part of the ghost tour last night.  She's sure changed a lot from the little girl that would have been to scared to even be near the cemetery and battlefields.

     The Visitor Center finally opened at 9:00.  We had been waiting to go there since Tuesday.  We got to spend some time in the bookstore and gift shop.  Scott bought a couple of books there.  Our shopping then shifted to the area of the town square.  We started at the Starbucks by the Gettysburg Hotel, and after Julie and Emma got their drinks (and Emma got her favorite chicken caprese to eat), we explored the shops around two of the four spokes of the wheel.  Among other things that we bought, we got Abby a sunhat that looks like a duck.  Scott bought two more books- one from a Civil War store and one from the comic book store.  Emma got some earrings and we got some things for the dogs.  

     By the time we were done with half of the square's shops, it was lunch time, and we wanted to have a picnic.  We went back to the Sheetz that has become our supply base this trip and everyone got something for lunch.  We took the food to some picnic tables by the Visitor Center parking lot that Julie had spotted earlier in the week.  It was about 70 degrees today- a little cooler than yesterday- with clear skies and gentle breezes.  In short, it was gorgeous day to be eating outside, and we all enjoyed the quiet little corner we had found for our lunch. 

      We had brought two bikes all the way from West Seneca but we hadn't really ridden them yet.  We had caused a lot of paint damage to the back of the car from them rattling in the bike rack on the way down.  The bikes have been stored in the ballroom of the hotel this whole time except for the brief time that Scott took Emma's to get air in the tires yesterday.  It seemed like we should try to ride them sometime.  Julie suggested this plan at lunch:  She and Abby would stay at the picnic tables until they were satisfied and then walk back to the hotel with the stroller.  It was only a quarter mile away or so.  Scott and Emma would take the car back to the hotel and get the bikes.  They could ride the bikes for a while and when they were done, we could all meet back at the hotel and maybe go shopping again.  

     There were two problems with this plan.  First, Emma was not used to riding in traffic.  She only started riding her bike when Grandpa Frank gave it to her last fall, and has basically only ridden it up and down our street.  Having to brake going down the long hill by our hotel while the traffic was whipping by her was a little too much.  She ended up toppling a couple of times, though since she wasn't allowing herself to go very fast, she didn't really get that hurt.  Scott and Emma got to the corner of Hunt Avenue, just behind the Visitor Center, and when Emma went over once more, she was ready to call it quits.  They called Julie, who was only a short distance away, and waited for her to come so Emma could walk her bike back up the hill to the hotel with Julie, Abby and the stroller.  

     The other problem with the plan is that Scott had forgotten how hilly Gettysburg actually is.  His bike is new this spring and he has only ridden it once.  Even though he has been walking a lot to lose weight, biking uses some different muscles.  He felt like he was walking the bike more than riding it.  He walked it up Hunt Avenue and eventually came to the main Union battle line at General Meade's statue.  He rode along that line for a short way, but ended up having to walk the bike up to the crest of Cemetery Hill.  Even though the National Cemetery is relatively flat, biking in the cemetery is not allowed, so he had to walk his bike through there too.  When he came out on the Baltimore Pike side of the cemetery, he just felt like coasting down the hill and into the hotel parking lot.  He went up to the room and cooled off with the girls.

     Julie did make one phone call for Scott.  He had found a VHS tape on eBay that was of the 125th anniversary re-enactment that he had participated in back in 1988.  It is volume 3 of a four volume set, and he has not been able to find any copies of the remaining tapes.  Since they were originally made by a video company here in Gettysburg, Julie tried to call the number on the back of the tape.  "You woke me up!" said a grumpy man without even saying "Hello." Julie apologized and said she was trying to find the video company on the tape.  He grumbled angrily back at her, "They closed in May!" but that was as far as we got.

     It was only a little after 1:00, so once we had gathered ourselves up, we went out for some more shopping.  This time our target was the tourist area on Steinwehr Avenue.  We started at the Gettysburg Heritage Center, and worked our way through the t-shirt shops, antique stores and sutlers.  There also seems to be a growing number of psychics, ghost tour companies, and even breweries on the street, but we didn't visit those.  When we got near the end of the street, the girls stopped for ice cream while Scott continued on to the Irish Brigade shop again.  There were some used CD's that he bought there, and he told the older woman that he was sorry to learn that they would be closing.  She said that they had been there for 31 years, which means that they would have opened about 1990.  That makes sense, but it doesn't seem like it has been that long.  We have pretty much always stopped there when we came to town.  Scott wished her well and went back to circle around to meet the girls.

     We were now ready to start thinking about dinner.  While there are a lot of places to choose from in town, Emma's favorite place to eat is Applebee's.  The closest one we could find was about 30 minutes away in Waynesboro, PA.  To get there, though, we crossed the Mason-Dixon line and were briefly in Maryland.  It was Abby's third state, after New York and Pennsylvania.  She's tripled the number of states she has visited in just a few days time.  It was only after we crossed the border that Julie asked if this would effect Emma with quarantine rules.  We didn't know the answer to that, but we were only in Maryland a few minutes and we were back in Pennsylvania, so while it counts for Abby, we don't think it counts against Emma.  We ate at Applebee's, got a few necessities at Walmart and made our way back to Gettysburg.  We saw a lot of interesting farm animals along the way and even got to drive across a covered bridge.

     Once we were back in Gettysburg, Scott was dropped off at the Virginia monument.  He wanted to try to walk the route of Pickett's Charge again now that he had figured out the GoPro.  The fields he had to cross had been recently plowed so he tried to stick to the fences.  That meant that he didn't take the most direct route over and must have crossed in front of the Confederate lines and back again while he did so.  He also had to walk along the fence at Emmitsburg Road to find an opening to get through.  If soldiers had really been firing at him he would have been cut to pieces.  As he approached the Angle at the end of the charge, there were two very muddy spots.  The mud was so thick that it almost pulled his sneaker off of his foot, but he made it out and up the hill, while other visitors were gathering to watch the sunset behind him.  Meanwhile, Emma got to practice her driving again on the battlefield.  She had driven up and down the Round Tops and through various roads on the southern end of the park.  When Scott finally ended up at the High Water Mark, a few minutes later than he expected, he found the girls playing with Abby among the monuments.  The walk took a little longer than he expected because of the zigzagging he had done, but with the sun going down, it seemed like an appropriate way to end the day.

     We decided to call it a day and went back to the hotel.  We still have a few things we want to do before we leave tomorrow, but Julie concluded the day by saying that if we had to pack up and go back home tonight, she would still be satisfied with the many things that we were able to do on this vacation.  It has felt good to be back in the saddle and out exploring again.

Post Script:

This last picture is Scott's haul from the book stores and gift shops today.  

• A book about Amos Humiston from the 154th New York, by Mark Dunkelman
• A book called Beer in America: The Early Years
• A book about the power of music and songs in the Civil War
• A DC comic book, this one celebrating 80 years of the character of Robin
• Another volume of Ghosts of Gettysburg
• and three Irish music CDs (that cost $1.75 each)

How perfect is that?