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Little Round Top
Gettysburg National Military Park The two days spent getting east on this vacation were planned around one of our life goals: see all the National Park Service monuments, memorials and parks. We have done pretty well to this point, reaching approximately 2/3 so far. Perry's Victory yesterday and our first two stops this morning were still on the list.
Johnstown Flood National Memorial is actually northeast of Johnstown, and commemorates the 1889 flood that wiped out the entire city, along with many victims in towns along the way. The South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club, whose members included Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon, operated an earthen dam upriver to maintain a lake. They didn't repair a valve that had failed, put gates across the spillway to prevent fish from getting out, and didn't keep the middle part of the dam high enough, but would have been okay had the area not received massive amounts of rain in a brief period which sent water over the dam and then eroded it very quickly. They were found not at fault in civil litigation. The flood is described as a ball of water that rolled down the river, wiping out everything in under an hour. The photos
Terrifying scene (Johnstown Flood Nat'l Memorial)
This 16 year old rode the flood hanging onto the remains of his barn. His family, who had been in the house, all died. in the visitor's center were pretty impressive. The boys particularly enjoyed the map showing where the water moved. Liam needed to watch it twice. We also walked out to the ruins of the dam and visited the club headquarters.
Our second stop of the day was the still temporary Flight 93 National Memorial. We took pretty tiny roads out there, and were surprised at how many people were there, in the middle of nowhere. They began construction not that long ago, so aside from the memorials people have left, there isn't much there. Having said that, there are many small gifts and tokens and stone monuments. There are benches and angels inscribed with everyone's names. I'm not that sentimental, but it made me a little teary-eyed. I never really believed that everyone knew exactly what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated, but I absolutely remember September 11. It was my day off so I was going shopping. I was listening to KQ and Tom Bernard said "a plane hit the World Trade Center." I called Jeff and asked him what was happening in New York, but he had no idea, so I had
to get it from the Morning Show and any TV that was on while shopping. It was absolutely surreal. When I finally got home, all I did was sit in front of the TV It will be quite moving once it's completed. They plan to officially dedicate it September 11, 2011.
We made a tactical error planning the next portion of our drive, heading east on Pennsylvania 30 instead of heading to the interstate. It reminded me, though, that we are basically doing an extended version of our first vacation back in 1999 when we did Gettysburg, Philadelphia and Washington, because we saw a few things that I remember and have photos of. We saw enough warnings to make us eventually head to the interstate and it worked out fine, giving the boys an extended nap.
Liam's three goals for this trip were to see the big guy, touch the Washington Monument, and go to a Civil War battlefield. Which better to see than Gettysburg? We dropped off the camper at Gettysburg/Battlefield KOA (which is a beautiful place that we should come stay at longer) and headed into Gettysburg. I was a little concerned before leaving about how
many people may be there, being the anniversary of the battle, and I initially thought I was right. There were people everywhere. Driving through town was painful. It wasn't bad, though, on the Auto Tour road, and then once we passed the Peace Memorial it was actually pretty sparsely populated. I tried to focus the camera on monuments I don't remember and parts of the park we didn't visit last time, although I did feel obligated to take another photo of the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry monument.
Liam's "When I have kids . . . " Statement of the Day: When I have kids, I'll let them stand on stuff with caution tape.
Number of Times Cole Asked about Going Home: 2
Projects Completed: 0 (but am still working on the vest, which I'm completely sick of)
GF: 5 (PA)
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