August 7 Gettysburg Rest day 0 miles

Diana, Darrell, and Barb are riding today only because guns are being held to their heads!

Chappie, Tracey, and Janet at breakfast

Gettysburg architecture

Ok, so there are 0 miles that count toward the ride across the country but we did get on our bikes today, for the first time ever on a rest day. Usually, our rest days put us close enough to services that we can just walk to laundry, shopping, or restaurants but this particular campsite is a bit further out. So we had to ride into town for breakfast. I woke up early as usual– 5:30 which is about when the sun comes up here. It was a beautiful morning and I had a great sleep in our little cabin. The mattresses are just about brand new and even though someone was snoring, I had no trouble sleeping because I have ear plugs for just that case. Sharon made us some great coffee when she got up and once the others got up, we started doing our chores. I cleaned up my bike– flithy after 2 days of the limestone trail plus the wet roads yesterday morning after the rains. Meanwhile, Diana and Tracey did  laundry so our cabin porch was soon festooned with drying clothing. Once that was all settled Darrell, Diana, and I biked into town to join Patty, Chappie (her friend who is riding with us these last few days) and Janet at breakfast. I had my last big breakfast of this trip, a feta cheese and bacon omlette. We are all talking about having to cut back on our eating right away when the trip starts and since the next 2 days are fairly easy, or so I’ve heard, I think that will happen right away for me.

Gettysburg town squre

 

 

 

 

Diana and another visitor are shown the sights by President Lincoln

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After breakfast Darrell took off to go see some of the battlefield sights but Diana and I walked the town to see what was closer by. There are lots of historic old buildings in the central area of Gettysburg that date to the civil war period, some with bullet holes from the 3-day battle itself. Most interesting was seeing the building where Lincoln composed his Gettysburg Address. The building isn’t much to see right now as its undergoing restoration but the town hopes to have it up and running again in a few months. Outside the building we ran into President Lincoln himself and Diana posed for a picture but forgot to ask for an autograph.

One of the battlefields

On the way back to camp, we got a sandwich for lunch at Subway and stopped at a grocery store for stuff to make a picnic dinner for the cabin. As I mentioned, we are pretty far from town here and we really didn’t want to have to get back on our bikes a second time to go to dinner. So the vote was picnic dinner tonite. We got wine, some good bread, sliced turkey and cheese, and for a salad I got some basil, tomatoes and motzarella cheese. Liz is going to get something for dinner so I think we will survive the night until breakfast tomorrow morning.

Seeing the value of higher ground

Pennsylvania war memorial

Some of the guys play in the storm

Taking refuge from the storm at the bathouse

Greg enjoys the lull between the 2 storms

Noah, Douglas, Chad, and Simon drying off

This afternoon, we took a 2-hour bus tour of the battlefields that was really interesting. This tour company picks you up right here at the campgrounds so we were spared the pain of more bike riding. They drive you around and show you the main battlefields and explain how the terrain worked for the different regiments of the 2 armies. Its really impressive how there are monuments scattered all over this area documenting all the regiments from all the states that fought in the war. The monuments are placed where the regiment had its heaviest fighting. The land here rises and falls, plus there are some high spots that reach approximately the height of a 13-story building. These changes in terrain worked for and against soldiers as they fought for possession of the town and the tour guide kept reminding us “do you see the value of high ground”. As the tour progressed, I couldn’t help but notice that the sky to the west was getting darker and darker and darker. A storm was fast approaching. We hustled off the bus when the tour was over and into the van that would take us back to camp, hoping to beat the storm. When the lady driving said she’d take us right to our cabin, we dumped money in her tip jar in gratitude. We arrived at the cabin just as the wind hit and the first few drops of rain began to fall. Noah, Austin, and Rueben were playing cribbage in front of our door and I told them our front porch was going to be hit by the rain so they rain for their tents. Just a few minutes later, the rain poured down and the wind blew like crazy. Our door faces west and we had to shut it and the windows on that side of the cabin because the wind was blowing the rain so much. It was nice and cozy inside though, and nice that we weren’t in our tents. The guys however were running around and staking down their tents. Then they rain around and played in the rain– we laughed as we watched them. Now its an hour later and you can hardly tell it even rained!