Blogs from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States, North America

Hi guys, Before leaving Lexington, we did one last walk around this lovely village. We wanted to see the Robert E Lee Chapel and his last home and the Stonewall Jackson cemetery. During this trip we learned that after the war, Robert E Lee accepted an offer from Washington University to be its new president. He moved on the campus, which is adjacent to VMI, and organized the construction of its first chapel. His office was there and now he is buried there. Of course, they renamed the university to Washington & Lee. Next we started our drive to Gettysburg. Once again, Jackie was in charge of locating nearby wineries. She chose the Blenheim Vineyard. It is not too far off our route so we took a detour over. Can you guess the name of the ... read more

This day didn't go entirely how I planned, which has become a theme already in the first two days of the trip. I spent the morning at Antietam in Maryland and then most of the afternoon at Gettysburg. After a stop at the Hershey Park, I ventured to the home of my friends Amy and Kevin, who have graciously allowed me to stay with them for the evening. I left my hostel in Luray, Virginia, just after 7:30 this morning. All my previous GPSing had said that Antietam was 2.5 hours away, but when I fired it up in the car, it had decreased to about 1.75 hours. That was fine with me. I got to the battlefield around 9:15 after driving through West Virginia and crossing the Potomac River, seeing lots of beautiful scenery. Antietam ... read more

On our way to Gettysburg we spent two days in Zanesville, Ohio where we had the largest locust that I have ever seen and you could really hear them also. We drove through Wheeling, West Virginia on our way and the GPS took me down a side of a mountain with 40% grade and 15 mile curves which was an adventure with the trailer. Thank God for my exhaust brake. We made it to Gettysburg where we stayed for 10 days at Artillery Ridge Campground which is about a mile from the Battlefield Visitor Center. We spent most of our time here visiting Bonnie's son Dallas and his family, Kim, Tanner and Alexis. We got to celebrated Alexis' birthday with her and went out to dinner a couple of times. We also took a trip up ... read more

And so we arrived at our final stage - Gettysburg. On the drive from Roanoke to a final shopping stop on the edge of town we left Virginia and passed through West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, touching briefly back into Maryland, all before lunch. Including Tennessee, North Carolina and the District of Columbia that makes 6 states in all - only 44 to go!! Stopping of four a quick round of mini golf we arrived in Gettysburg to our hotel right in the middle of the town. Gettysburg has a real town centre, which sets it aside from any previous experience we have had in the States whereby towns have consisted more of main roads with malls and plazas at regular intervals. The main focus of our visit was the battle ground, a national park covering ... read more

The US Civil War debate continued with the visit to Gettysburg, where we were able to relate to the phenomenal lecture by Jim Terry about the political systems in America. Furthermore, Fred Gantz and Terry Havel gave us an amazing & jolly tour guide of Gettysburg. In the morning we visited an orchard which had apple plantation where we met an American farmer. Comparing this trip to rural parts of India, i would admit that even an average American farmer had way more better lifestyle than any Indian farmer. Even the farming was way more advanced between this developed country and a developing country like India. In places like Maharashtra near Mumbai where i grew up, farmer suicide due to drought and debt was very common. But again farmers in America had other things to worry ... read more