April 29th was Aaron and my's anniversary, but because of finals we were unable to really celebrate it. So last week (may 22-24) we headed north to Pennsylvania. Where to? To the most romantic place in the world. . . Gettysburg! If you think that's strange, then you didn't hear the sarcasm when I typed "the most romantic place in the world". Hey, we are not the most romantic couple in the world. We wanted to go and we don't get that mutch time off, so we went.
Gettysburg is really a beautiful place! It's a cute little town and there hasn't been a whole lot of change in the landscape (you gotta love tourist towns). Anyway, we stayed in this cute little bed and breakfast called Doubleday's Inn. All the rooms looked old fashioned and the breakfast they served was amazing! Expecially the chocolate chip scone with sweet cream! MMM mmm!!
We spent our time seeing the battlefield, museums, and just enjoying ourselves. We met some really interesting people while we were there too. One couple was from Florida and the husband worked in the everglades. He told us about the infestation of Boa Constrictors that are now eating the alligators! Crazy huh? Apparently people were letting their pet snakes go when they got to big for their cages and they started breeding. All I have to say about that is take care of your own pets. Don't let them go in the wild!
Another couple we met were from Wisconson. They were out here seeing Gettysburg because the husband had just finished writing a paper on it. So we tagged along with them for a little bit while they taught us what they had learned about the war. It was so interesting! One thing I cleared up for myself was the number of casualties. I knew that Gettysburg at upwards of 50,000 casualties, and I thought that was all the number dead. It included the dead, of course; but it also included the wounded, captured, and missing. Of course alot of the wounded only lived a few days after the battle, but there you go.
After Gettysburg, we headed towards Pennsylvania's highest peak. Just in case you didn't know, Aaron and I have made the goal to climb alot of the highest peaks in the states. Now you have to understand a few things about marriage. You learn to pick your battles. Aaron and I tend to scwabble in the car if we are not careful. We have found that if we listen to audio books, we don't have those problems. So we had several audio books to listen to. Yet, we have no a/c in our car. So there we were, driving on the freeway with our windows down (hoping to prevent us from sweating our lives away), with the radio blasting so we could here the book over the wind. Let's just say it's a recipe for a headache! The book was good though.
To get to the highest peaks, they don't often have great directions. So we got the GPS coordinates (to put into our GPS system). The coordinates to PA's highest point, Mt Davis, took us right there. I mean literally. We only had to walk 20 feet before we were there. Of course we had to hike the crazy steep steps up the overlook tower, but it still wasn't much of a hike. Pretty scenery though.
Now here's where our adventure gets fun. So we had the coordinates for Maryland's highest point and we follow them. I don't know what format they were in, but they weren't right!!! We drove to some crazy out of the way place in West Virginia (which didn't bother us any because maryland's highest peak is right across the border from WV). Anyway, we had to stop at this fence and Aaron really wanted to see if it had just taken us to a wron road. So we got out, hopped the fence and went trespassing on this crazy farm in order to find our point. When we got to the point desired, we found cows. At this point I'm worried because we are in the middle of back woods West Virginia where there's a ton of Hill Billies and I'm worried that they won't think twice before shooting strangers on their land!
Finally, we got back to the car and decided to use the map. (I know we should have done that first, but when you think the GPS coordinates are right and will take you the same route anyway, you don't think about that). We drove another hour and a half until we got to the trail head, which was also in West Virginia. We hiked and hiked and I really thought we might be hiking for 10 miles because the trail didn't say how far the point was. It just had marked trees with arrows. Not even a mile away, we got to the point which was the coolest point I've been to. They had a little geo-cache and a camera stand so you could take timed photos (I hate the whole having to point and shoot blindly at yourselves). I loved it! So know we have 3/51 points crossed off our list.
On teh way back from our hikes we found the smallest church in the 48 states! It was teeny!
2 comments:
Who says Gettysburg isn't romantic? ;)
Speaking of, I just read an article a few days ago that where a group of historians were arguing that Lincoln had a severe case of small pox while he gave his speech there. Digusting but true.
wow, lol, you guys must have had quite a fun time... did u seen any crazy farmers while on their property? All you have to do to escape from them is the duck and run strategy(who knows, this might only work with professional runners, but you can always give it a try and hope for the best, hehe). On some of your hikes around the states, i may have to join you if you ever come close to where i live. A sister to always liven it up, and maybe even another crazy brother named andrew...haha, to help you not get too lost
Post a Comment