Safely in Gettysburg

Given how long it took me to upload the simple picture of our drive from today, this may be a bit of a text-heavy posting!  Fear not, though, plenty of pictures are available here!



We enjoyed a lovely weekend in Ridgefield with Abigail's family!  We arrived Saturday morning, having persevered through an early morning round of New England thunderstorms that was enough to challenge our wits!  But the clouds cleared once we arrived in Ridgefield and had enjoyed lunch.  We sat out on the Wattley's blustery back deck, listening to the video-stream of Ethan's alma mater's graduation, and welcomed a wonderful visit from Abigail's old feminist friend, Curious Georgiana!  Sunday (Mother's Day), Cliff took everyone out to a gorgeous brunch at a classic family spot, before we saw Babies, a fanciful look at child-rearing in four different cultures.  Not much talking - but great storytelling.

We left at about 6:15 this morning, have safely dropped a much more mobile Cliff off at the shuttle station for his train ride into work.  Once on the road, the driving was quick.  We took a scenic detour on US-209 through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, which delivered on said, promised scenery.  The route dropped us down into central Pennsylvania, which boasted gorgeous scenery.  There, in Hamburg PA, we happened to hear the president's announcement of his nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.  We also got word that the market had rebounded some four-hundred points; sounds like the EU bailout package delivered the desired effect.

We arrived in Gettysburg at 11:45, and took in the much expanded visitors center, which featured a 15-minute film capturing all the nuance and detail you would expect from a fifteen minute film (turns out the battle was bloody...  who knew?).  Less impressive initially was the cyclorama, until you heard what it was!  At first glance, it looked like a giant mural; said mural is, in fact, a 19th century oil painting depicting Pickett's Charge with such accuracy and detail that it was said to cause the battle's veterans to weep.  The cyclorama is 27 feet wide!  Perhaps most impressive for the sheer variety of non sequiteuralia was the gift shop, where you could drop in if you were on the hunt for Cast Iron Cookware or Vermont Maple Syrup.  At the gift shop, we did purchase an audio tour of the battlefield, which allowed us to spend three hours driving the 26 miles of park roads with some semblance of context.

The audio tour was led by Wayne Motts, whose fascination with the gruesome battle extends beyond its conclusion on July 3, 1863; no, Motts ensures that you follow the battle's bloody entrails to Washington, DC, where a Union Colonel would regularly visit the femur of his amputated leg carefully entrusted to a military hospital for safekeeping.  Gross.

In truth, the park is highly interesting, perhaps most so for the contrast between the pastoral, placid landscape and the gruesome, violent struggle that took place here.