The Trip: Gettysburg [Post 1 of 3]
This will be post one of three, mostly because I have a shitton of pictures to share. Hover over said pictures for more commentary.
Day One: Monday, June 20, 2011
We got off to a bit of an inauspicious start-we left about two hours late (off the optimal time, anyway; we wanted to for sure be gone by nine at the latest, which we also missed by an hour, leaving at ten.) Of course, we're us, so an hour to two late is really right on time.
So after we ran around like the proverbial headless chickens, we were on the road, but not for long. We had to stop at Meijer to get ice and a grill cover for a fire pit (the small, portable gas grill we were going to use last saw functionality sometime during the Reagan administration, I'm pretty sure, and we gave up on it after about thirty minutes of trying to get it to work) and then we had to stop at a rest area so Sylvia could get some coffee. We also stopped at the following rest area so Sharon could use the restroom. Ohio did not want us to leave, dammit.
We only stopped twice in Pennsylvania, at least-once for lunch, the other for gas. We got to the campsite around 8:00, which was too late for us to set up and still have time to go do the ghost tour we'd planned, but that was all right. We figured maybe we could do it tomorrow.
As we were setting up, we realized we forgot the damn air pump for mine and Sharon's air mattresses. Also, Sylvia's air mattress, which has the pump attached to it, needs to be plugged in. She figured she could just run it from the converter in her car, but it pretty much went "lol no" when she tried it-nowhere near strong enough to blow it up and not take six hours to do so. Cue Sylvia and I running around, heading up to the bathroom-with her air mattress-to find an outlet so she could blow it up. We found one, and of course we looked like morons, lugging an air mattress around and trying to stuff it into the back of the car. I'm sure we looked even stupider with it attached to the top of the car, driving around with it. Oh, us. The people in the trailer closest to the bathroom must have been cracking their shit up. "Honey, come look at these stupid tourists trying to get this air mattress up on top of their car!"
Sharon and I didn't have air mattresses for the night, but that was okay-we also brought sleeping bags, and Sylvia didn't, so we could deal for the time-being. I planned to buy a pump on Tuesday.
So! Since we got to the campsite so late, that meant no office personnel, which meant no firewood. When all of our food needed to be cooked for dinner. Yay us. Once again, Sylvia and I were off, this time driving around Gettysburg to find a place to buy wood or, failing that, charcoal. We eventually found a 7-11 where we managed to pick up some charcoal, so that was good. We did get briefly turned around thanks to the stupidest construction ever (seriously, why would you tear up a major area of road during tourist season on the 150th anniversary of the war your town is famous for?!) but we got back okay.
After that, made some food and some s'mores. Mmm, carbonized marshmallows. The charcoal went fast, and we had to talk Sharon out of stealing some poor family's firewood, so instead she went stick collecting in the dark, with a flashlight. This was kind of hilarious to watch.
Day Two: Tuesday, June 21, 2011
I got a fun wake up call at 7:30 in the morning, with Sylvia and Sharon all, "The tent is leaking! We need to get the stuff out!" (It was, obviously, raining.) So I was half awake, grabbing my clothes and all my electronics, and rushing to get the hell out of the tent. It turned out it'd been raining and leaking all night, which Sharon and Sylvia were both privy to: Sharon because she was awake and freaking out about it, and Sylvia because Sharon's freaking out kept her awake, as she is a light sleeper. I, on the other hand, sleep like the dead, and missed all this excitement. (I was surprisingly comfy just on the sleeping bag and deflated air mattress. Back didn't complain at all.)
So we went to the bathhouse to shower, then headed toward a town outside Gettysburg to find a Wal Mart or some place we could get a tarp for the tent. We stopped first for breakfast at this restaurant/diner called the Flamingo, which was pretty good. Giant pancakes-two plus a few strips of turkey bacon was more than enough for me. I didn't even finish it all. Then we found a Tractor Supply so we didn't have to go to, in Sylvia's words, The Evil Empire. Got the tarps (and some firewood, as I'm sure you remember that ordeal) and headed back to the campsite. We again looked like idiots as we put the tarp over the tent and cable tied it to the poles. Sharon took a nap in the car while Sylvia and I did this.
That done, we headed off, discovering that my camera was kaput at the info center for the battlefield auto tour. We decided, after getting maps, to do the Shriver House museum first, because the auto tour went through the area we needed to be for horseback riding at 7:45 (this was the sunset tour.) So we went to the museum, which was pretty cool. I felt bad for Hettie-she outlived her husband and all her kids. The house was pretty giant, too-it'd be good-sized for now, must've been a frickin' mansion for back then. Something I found neat: her one daughter apparently helped out a surgeon, basically acting as a surgical nurse by standing on a crate and helping him with whatever he needed. At age nine. I thought that was kind of badass, even though she did later die at eighteen of tuberculosis (wonder if that had anything to do with it, actually.) Sharon and I both got keychains, and I also got my first postcards of the trip. Yay, postcards.
Pictures weren't allowed inside, unfortunately, but we tried to get a picture of the outside, and that was when we discovered that Sylvia's camera was also dead. It was mass camera failure day, apparently. (We did go back to take some pictures of the outside/the garden.)
So! This time we did go to The Evil Empire for cameras since, c'mon, we needed at least one. Sylvia got a decent one, but I just got a crappy $30 one. After that, it was off to the auto tour, which basically consisted of driving around the area of the battlefield and stopping to take pictures every so often. Right when I went to take my very first picture of the trip, I got stung by a bee. Cue me cursing out the bee: "That's right, fuck you, bee! You just killed yourself, fucker!" I think Sylvia took a picture of this.
On another memorable stop, Sharon saw a statue of a mustached dude on a horse and asked: "Is that Teddy Roosevelt?" pretty miraculously aging Teddy Roosevelt at least sixty years and making him the commander of the Confederate army to boot. (The statue was of Robert E. Lee, lol.) We lol'd.
We also went up this seven-story observation deck, and I got some pictures and took some video. Fun, fun. All in all, what we saw of the tour was pretty cool-we planned to finish it tomorrow since we had horses that night.
So, horseback riding, through various battlefield trails. That was fun, if a bit scary. My horse's name was Daisy. I felt bad for her, having a rider who had no idea what the fuck she was doing. Daisy knew the game, though, so it was cool.
After horseback riding, we drove around a bit, trying to see if we could find the spot for the ghost tours, since we had conflicting addresses. No luck, so we headed back to the campsite. Spent about forty minutes fucking with the fire, trying to get it to light, to no avail. Finally we asked this nearby guy for help (he'd come back to his site later than us and gotten his fire to work in, oh, five minutes or so) and he was nice enough to oblige, so we finally got to eat. Then came the really, really fun part, trying to dry everything out. First we sopped up the tent, then we had to figure out where to find quarters. (The campsite generously provided both a laundry room and a quarter machine. The laundry room was available 24 hours. The quarter machine was locked up in the office and therefore not much help to us at midnight.) Bear in mind, we were exhausted by this point and just wanted to sleep. Finally we decided to try the 7-11, hoping against hope that they didn't have a no change policy or anything like that. They didn't, thankfully, or I might have cried. Sylvia said I should have told the dude at the register that he was my knight in shining armor. I told her that I was wearing mismatched pajama clothes and flip flops and was so tired and zone-y I probably looked high as a kite as it was, why freak him out like that? She conceded the point.
So we sat in the laundry room and waited for our shit to dry. Then we slept. Yay, sleep.
Day Three: Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The tarp worked! For the most part, anyway. Water still collected at the top of the tent, and Sylvia had to get up to drain it at one point, but it all stayed outside. Thank god.
So we slept in a bit, to make up for the last night, then showered and headed to town. We stopped at this American History store; Sharon got a book about haunted places, and I got another post card. Then we went to eat at The Avenue Restaurant. (Apparently, Eileen's place moved to Pennsylvania and turned into a diner, Kelly!) The food was good. I think. You see, Sylvia got sick; she ended up throwing up in someone's yard-possibly the historic yard of some first lady, lol. We didn't think it was the diner's food, since it happened literally within seconds of finishing her food. Wouldn't it have taken longer for that? Also, I was fine, and so was Sharon. Idk. It could have been the cream cheese she'd had earlier on her bagel-it had been been in a cooler for a few days.
Anyway, after that wonderful detour, we went to the spirit museum. That had some pretty cool pictures. (Who knows how real/believable they are, but. Still cool.) Sharon got a necklace. I got yet more postcards.
After that, we went to another museum, which had a film and this giant diorama thing, which was cool. I got my "big" souvenir of the city, an awesome notebook (I bet this shocks most of you) and a keychain for my mom. No postcards, lol. I'd had enough by then.
Next we made a quick stop at a scrapbook store for Sylvia, (She has an obsession. Don't ask.) and after that, we went to Big Round Top and climbed a giant hill! In the wrong shoes! Yay! Haha. No, it wasn't too long, maybe a third of a mile, but uphill all the way in tennis shoes? Sure feels like more. I was the first to the top, 'cause Sharon and Sylvia kept being distracted by shiny things, idk. It was cool; I was playing tag with this random dude. He passed me at one point when I was still bothering to wait for Sharon and Sylvia. Then I gave up and continued and found him at this monument, which I stopped at briefly to take pictures, and headed onward. I stopped at another monument a little ways further, and he found me again, then went on. Then finally I ran into him again at the top. It was amusing. I was all like, "Hi again! Been awhile." and he laughed and asked if we were at Big Round Top or Little Round Top, which, lol, dude, Little Round Top is like, two feet of a climb, this is the big one. Then Sharon and Sylvia finally caught up and Sylvia did some scary things to get some cool pictures. Said scary things were banned toward Sharon, who is a klutz and I could easily envision falling onto many dozens of painfully jagged rocks and killing herself instantly.
We drove along the rest of the auto tour after that, which was neat. A lot of great views and monuments to see.
It was back to the campsite after that. Sharon got the fire started! In under twenty minutes! Without causing herself or any passersby grievous bodily harm! Yay! That is what I call a success, people.
Oh, this was where we also discovered that a corner of the tent ripped. This tent fucking hated us, no lie.
After food, we showered (since tomorrow was a driving day, it was faster to shower at night), and went to sleep.
Next stop: Boston! Home of the baked bean and Charles Emerson Winchester the third. =P
The Boston post should be up tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll link them all together when I'm done.
Onward to Boston.
Day One: Monday, June 20, 2011
We got off to a bit of an inauspicious start-we left about two hours late (off the optimal time, anyway; we wanted to for sure be gone by nine at the latest, which we also missed by an hour, leaving at ten.) Of course, we're us, so an hour to two late is really right on time.
So after we ran around like the proverbial headless chickens, we were on the road, but not for long. We had to stop at Meijer to get ice and a grill cover for a fire pit (the small, portable gas grill we were going to use last saw functionality sometime during the Reagan administration, I'm pretty sure, and we gave up on it after about thirty minutes of trying to get it to work) and then we had to stop at a rest area so Sylvia could get some coffee. We also stopped at the following rest area so Sharon could use the restroom. Ohio did not want us to leave, dammit.
We only stopped twice in Pennsylvania, at least-once for lunch, the other for gas. We got to the campsite around 8:00, which was too late for us to set up and still have time to go do the ghost tour we'd planned, but that was all right. We figured maybe we could do it tomorrow.
As we were setting up, we realized we forgot the damn air pump for mine and Sharon's air mattresses. Also, Sylvia's air mattress, which has the pump attached to it, needs to be plugged in. She figured she could just run it from the converter in her car, but it pretty much went "lol no" when she tried it-nowhere near strong enough to blow it up and not take six hours to do so. Cue Sylvia and I running around, heading up to the bathroom-with her air mattress-to find an outlet so she could blow it up. We found one, and of course we looked like morons, lugging an air mattress around and trying to stuff it into the back of the car. I'm sure we looked even stupider with it attached to the top of the car, driving around with it. Oh, us. The people in the trailer closest to the bathroom must have been cracking their shit up. "Honey, come look at these stupid tourists trying to get this air mattress up on top of their car!"
Sharon and I didn't have air mattresses for the night, but that was okay-we also brought sleeping bags, and Sylvia didn't, so we could deal for the time-being. I planned to buy a pump on Tuesday.
So! Since we got to the campsite so late, that meant no office personnel, which meant no firewood. When all of our food needed to be cooked for dinner. Yay us. Once again, Sylvia and I were off, this time driving around Gettysburg to find a place to buy wood or, failing that, charcoal. We eventually found a 7-11 where we managed to pick up some charcoal, so that was good. We did get briefly turned around thanks to the stupidest construction ever (seriously, why would you tear up a major area of road during tourist season on the 150th anniversary of the war your town is famous for?!) but we got back okay.
After that, made some food and some s'mores. Mmm, carbonized marshmallows. The charcoal went fast, and we had to talk Sharon out of stealing some poor family's firewood, so instead she went stick collecting in the dark, with a flashlight. This was kind of hilarious to watch.
Day Two: Tuesday, June 21, 2011
I got a fun wake up call at 7:30 in the morning, with Sylvia and Sharon all, "The tent is leaking! We need to get the stuff out!" (It was, obviously, raining.) So I was half awake, grabbing my clothes and all my electronics, and rushing to get the hell out of the tent. It turned out it'd been raining and leaking all night, which Sharon and Sylvia were both privy to: Sharon because she was awake and freaking out about it, and Sylvia because Sharon's freaking out kept her awake, as she is a light sleeper. I, on the other hand, sleep like the dead, and missed all this excitement. (I was surprisingly comfy just on the sleeping bag and deflated air mattress. Back didn't complain at all.)
So we went to the bathhouse to shower, then headed toward a town outside Gettysburg to find a Wal Mart or some place we could get a tarp for the tent. We stopped first for breakfast at this restaurant/diner called the Flamingo, which was pretty good. Giant pancakes-two plus a few strips of turkey bacon was more than enough for me. I didn't even finish it all. Then we found a Tractor Supply so we didn't have to go to, in Sylvia's words, The Evil Empire. Got the tarps (and some firewood, as I'm sure you remember that ordeal) and headed back to the campsite. We again looked like idiots as we put the tarp over the tent and cable tied it to the poles. Sharon took a nap in the car while Sylvia and I did this.
That done, we headed off, discovering that my camera was kaput at the info center for the battlefield auto tour. We decided, after getting maps, to do the Shriver House museum first, because the auto tour went through the area we needed to be for horseback riding at 7:45 (this was the sunset tour.) So we went to the museum, which was pretty cool. I felt bad for Hettie-she outlived her husband and all her kids. The house was pretty giant, too-it'd be good-sized for now, must've been a frickin' mansion for back then. Something I found neat: her one daughter apparently helped out a surgeon, basically acting as a surgical nurse by standing on a crate and helping him with whatever he needed. At age nine. I thought that was kind of badass, even though she did later die at eighteen of tuberculosis (wonder if that had anything to do with it, actually.) Sharon and I both got keychains, and I also got my first postcards of the trip. Yay, postcards.
Pictures weren't allowed inside, unfortunately, but we tried to get a picture of the outside, and that was when we discovered that Sylvia's camera was also dead. It was mass camera failure day, apparently. (We did go back to take some pictures of the outside/the garden.)
So! This time we did go to The Evil Empire for cameras since, c'mon, we needed at least one. Sylvia got a decent one, but I just got a crappy $30 one. After that, it was off to the auto tour, which basically consisted of driving around the area of the battlefield and stopping to take pictures every so often. Right when I went to take my very first picture of the trip, I got stung by a bee. Cue me cursing out the bee: "That's right, fuck you, bee! You just killed yourself, fucker!" I think Sylvia took a picture of this.
On another memorable stop, Sharon saw a statue of a mustached dude on a horse and asked: "Is that Teddy Roosevelt?" pretty miraculously aging Teddy Roosevelt at least sixty years and making him the commander of the Confederate army to boot. (The statue was of Robert E. Lee, lol.) We lol'd.
We also went up this seven-story observation deck, and I got some pictures and took some video. Fun, fun. All in all, what we saw of the tour was pretty cool-we planned to finish it tomorrow since we had horses that night.
So, horseback riding, through various battlefield trails. That was fun, if a bit scary. My horse's name was Daisy. I felt bad for her, having a rider who had no idea what the fuck she was doing. Daisy knew the game, though, so it was cool.
After horseback riding, we drove around a bit, trying to see if we could find the spot for the ghost tours, since we had conflicting addresses. No luck, so we headed back to the campsite. Spent about forty minutes fucking with the fire, trying to get it to light, to no avail. Finally we asked this nearby guy for help (he'd come back to his site later than us and gotten his fire to work in, oh, five minutes or so) and he was nice enough to oblige, so we finally got to eat. Then came the really, really fun part, trying to dry everything out. First we sopped up the tent, then we had to figure out where to find quarters. (The campsite generously provided both a laundry room and a quarter machine. The laundry room was available 24 hours. The quarter machine was locked up in the office and therefore not much help to us at midnight.) Bear in mind, we were exhausted by this point and just wanted to sleep. Finally we decided to try the 7-11, hoping against hope that they didn't have a no change policy or anything like that. They didn't, thankfully, or I might have cried. Sylvia said I should have told the dude at the register that he was my knight in shining armor. I told her that I was wearing mismatched pajama clothes and flip flops and was so tired and zone-y I probably looked high as a kite as it was, why freak him out like that? She conceded the point.
So we sat in the laundry room and waited for our shit to dry. Then we slept. Yay, sleep.
Day Three: Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The tarp worked! For the most part, anyway. Water still collected at the top of the tent, and Sylvia had to get up to drain it at one point, but it all stayed outside. Thank god.
So we slept in a bit, to make up for the last night, then showered and headed to town. We stopped at this American History store; Sharon got a book about haunted places, and I got another post card. Then we went to eat at The Avenue Restaurant. (Apparently, Eileen's place moved to Pennsylvania and turned into a diner, Kelly!) The food was good. I think. You see, Sylvia got sick; she ended up throwing up in someone's yard-possibly the historic yard of some first lady, lol. We didn't think it was the diner's food, since it happened literally within seconds of finishing her food. Wouldn't it have taken longer for that? Also, I was fine, and so was Sharon. Idk. It could have been the cream cheese she'd had earlier on her bagel-it had been been in a cooler for a few days.
Anyway, after that wonderful detour, we went to the spirit museum. That had some pretty cool pictures. (Who knows how real/believable they are, but. Still cool.) Sharon got a necklace. I got yet more postcards.
After that, we went to another museum, which had a film and this giant diorama thing, which was cool. I got my "big" souvenir of the city, an awesome notebook (I bet this shocks most of you) and a keychain for my mom. No postcards, lol. I'd had enough by then.
Next we made a quick stop at a scrapbook store for Sylvia, (She has an obsession. Don't ask.) and after that, we went to Big Round Top and climbed a giant hill! In the wrong shoes! Yay! Haha. No, it wasn't too long, maybe a third of a mile, but uphill all the way in tennis shoes? Sure feels like more. I was the first to the top, 'cause Sharon and Sylvia kept being distracted by shiny things, idk. It was cool; I was playing tag with this random dude. He passed me at one point when I was still bothering to wait for Sharon and Sylvia. Then I gave up and continued and found him at this monument, which I stopped at briefly to take pictures, and headed onward. I stopped at another monument a little ways further, and he found me again, then went on. Then finally I ran into him again at the top. It was amusing. I was all like, "Hi again! Been awhile." and he laughed and asked if we were at Big Round Top or Little Round Top, which, lol, dude, Little Round Top is like, two feet of a climb, this is the big one. Then Sharon and Sylvia finally caught up and Sylvia did some scary things to get some cool pictures. Said scary things were banned toward Sharon, who is a klutz and I could easily envision falling onto many dozens of painfully jagged rocks and killing herself instantly.
We drove along the rest of the auto tour after that, which was neat. A lot of great views and monuments to see.
It was back to the campsite after that. Sharon got the fire started! In under twenty minutes! Without causing herself or any passersby grievous bodily harm! Yay! That is what I call a success, people.
Oh, this was where we also discovered that a corner of the tent ripped. This tent fucking hated us, no lie.
After food, we showered (since tomorrow was a driving day, it was faster to shower at night), and went to sleep.
Next stop: Boston! Home of the baked bean and Charles Emerson Winchester the third. =P
The Boston post should be up tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll link them all together when I'm done.
Onward to Boston.