It's begun

The truck is loaded to the brim. There's just enough room for the driver and Bailey – and even she is a little squished. I'm afraid to open the doors because any number of items could come crashing to the ground. We left at 7am this morning. Traffic was a nightmare! Poor Phill on his motorcycle had sore wrists from hanging on to the throttle ten minutes into the drive. Virginia is reluctant to let us go, I guess. I took pictures of the traffic from our car window. Miserable traffic will be the first picture in the scrapbook. Goodbye city. Our four-lane onramp merged with a four-lane beltway – and it was all bumper to bumper. I could see Phill ahead of me with his feet on the ground slowly inching forward on his motorcycle. I was afraid that he might walk on his tip-toes all the way out of the city. Then it started to rain! Poor Phill. We stopped for breakfast before Gettysburg and continued on our way. I think we got to the visitor center around 10 or 11. Phill said it was all brand new from when he was there last. They have an auto tour that takes you on a 24-mile circle of the park and tells you what each landmark is along the way. It seemed like the best way to do it, so Phill climbed into the driver seat and Bailey and I smashed together in the tiny space left in the passenger seat.

The park was fantastic! It's so strange for me to think that these events actually occurred here in our history. I just finished reading A Red Badge of Courage just a month or so ago, and these images are making the book seem so much more meaningful. It's difficult to imagine the young men sitting in their locations in the woods and just waiting for the other side to come along for a fight. How scary and almost archaic the fighting techniques seem to me now. Literally, the men would line up on opposing sides in their “team” color and whichever side had the best location and could throw the most lead, won. One member, usually a young boy (often called a “youth”), would hold the regimen's flag. The boy would hold the frontline and none of the men were to go past the flag. If the flag fell (usually because the boy had been killed), someone else was to take up the position with the flag. And medical care, of course, was terrible. So many lost limbs. The gorgeous fields we were looking at were, at one time, littered with hundreds and thousands of killed and wounded soldiers in a matter of days – and often in matter of hours. And during the battle, it was July, so the weather was humid and hot as can be.

One of our last landmarks in the park was Little Big Horn which is where the Union finally took the lead and won the battle. This is where the famous Pickett's Charge took place. Pickett's mistake in charging cost him 5,000 lives in less than an hour if I'm remembering correctly. From Little Big Horn, you can see the major advantage the Union army had with this standpoint. They're far up on Cemetery Hill to begin with and can see toward Seminary Hill for miles. Additionally, two major roads (Taneytown and Baltimore Pike) are behind them supplying the forces. Clearly, had they not been positioned in this ideal location, the battle would have had a much different outcome. Incredible view from there as well.

We continued on our way around 1pm. Phill got back on his bike and I got back in the driver seat. The further north toward Red Creek we got, the colder and more miserable the weather turned. Each time we stopped for gas or a bathroom break, Phill put more clothes on in an attempt to stay warm. We tried to ride out more weather at the Liberty gas station in Pennsylvania where we actually saw ice pellets coming down. Again, poor Phill. By the time we left there, he had on more clothes than he wears when we go snow skiing. He got rained on pretty much solid for the final two or so hours of the trip. Needless to say, he was relieved to finally arrive at his parent's house in Red Creek, NY tonight.