Trip out East: Day 9, 10 and 11

Okay, before we get started… Sorry this has taken so long!! Really I've been working on this on and off pretty much since I posted the last part, it was just hard to figure out what to say, which pictures to post and so on. Plus I've had a lot going on, I know that sounds like a lame excuse for not posting but really, I've been busy with work, moving, and other random things. However it's been my goal to get this all posted before it'd a year since we left on the trip, and it's now been a year and two days since we left. I figured I better get it posted however it turned out. :P
Well moving on to actually talking about the trip. Day 9 we had to get up early to leave the Allie's :( which was sad. Most the day was spend driving, first we went to my dad's cousin's house, which is somewhere in the New York,  New York area but I'm not really sure where and it wasn't like actually in NYC. Anyway, so that was kinda interesting, cause I'd only seen them once before, when I was like 6. Sadly, I forgot the camera in the car and didn't get any pictures there.
After the visit with dad's cousin and family we went on to the big apple NYC. We didn't actually do much of anything there other then we stopped at Ground Zero, which has changed a lot since 2001 when we went there before.

the new World Trade Center (right? that's what they're calling it, isn't it?)and cranes.

We also drove past where dad's grandparents lived when he was younger and then took the George Washington bridge across the river into what is that state? New Jersey? Delaware? One of the Carolinas? No wait those are farther South. Yeah so whatever state is right there by New York.
After a night in a hotel we drove to Pennsylvania.

Top Left: Just a random picture from in the city. Top Right: Where dad's grandparents lived. Bottom: two pictures of the George Washington bridge, from different angles.

Day 10:
You know how I love history right? So you can probably guess why we were stoping in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I'll give you a hint, something happened there July 1-3rd 1864, if you don't know what, then do me a favor and go read an American history book, thanks!
First we went to the museum/gift shop place there to find out about what all was going on. At the...visitor center thingy they had these little show things in these tents outside. So one of them was this guy dressed up talking about the life of a Civil War solder. He talked about both sides about the same amount of time. We missed the very beginning but we heard most of his talk and it was fascinating! He talked about why they fought, where the average solder was from (random fact but most the Northern solders were not even native americans, and I don't mean like Indian Americans, I mean like borne in the US white man American, you had a lot of immigrants fighting for the North. The South also had a lot of immigrants but not as many as the North.) he talked about what they ate, what they did when not marching into battle, what kind of gun they had, what kind of uniform they had, their shoes, what they would carry around with them, and pretty much everything!

Outside the visitor center place we ran into our old friend good old Abe Lincoln! ;)

So after the fascinating talk we went on the driving tour of the battlefield. Basically what that means for all you who have never done one of these is that you have a map with all the main points of interest on it and you drive around in your own car going at your own pace all over to the different places and you can go to the places you want in whatever order and bla bla bla. Well we went into the town first to see like the train station where Lincoln came into town after the battle and a couple different buildings, it was a pretty neat town! We didn't really spend much time there though cause we only had that day and we wanted to see the actual battlefield (which for those of you who don't realize is HUGE. (Also a word of advice if you ever make it to Gettysburg, there are TONS of little gift shops in the town, so don't do all your shopping at the visitor center if you have time cause you can get better prices in town.)

Top Left: one of the buildings from a college that was there in 1864. Top Right: Just a random picture from the battle field. Bottom Left: Train station where Lincoln arrived after the battle. Bottom Right: Me with one of the larger monuments at Little Round Top.

After town we hit the field. Also a word of advice if you ever make out there. There are THOUSANDS of monuments all over the place! So don't try to stop and read them all, or get pictures of them all. You'll end up waisting your time. Also if you are trying to find a specific one you can get maps of where they all are or do a little research before hand and find it online. Anyway so we started out looking at most all the monuments, till we realized that was just gonna take way to long. So we started just going past most of them.

 

A couple different shots from around the field. The big one is actually from Pickets Charge which I'll talk about a little later on.

I don't really want to give you a long history lesson which I feel like this post would easily turn into one if I do too much talking so I'll mostly let the pictures do the talking for me, I mean a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

More shots from different parts of the field, obviously the in bottom left corner we have one from the Wheatfirld. next to it is one from the Peach Orchard.  

However even if a picture is worth a thousand words, they can't do ALL the talking...

Little Round Top, the monument for the Twentieth Main led by Joshua Larwence Chamberlain. 

We had just watched the Gettysburg movie a couple months before this ( really good movie btw!!! Gods and Generals, which actually goes first is also a really great movie! If you ever want to learn more about the Civil War without reading a history book watch them! They may have some very inaccurate stuff in them (like a unit in a battle they weren't really in here or there) but over all they are both very well done! You might want to split them up over a couple nights though cause they're both pretty long but over all they're worth the time.) so with it still in mind we were looking for different places that were shown in the movie, like the college and Little Round Top, we were also looking for the famous parts, both in the movie and not shown in the movie (Picket's Charge, the Wheat Field, ect). Anyway so we mostly did stuff in the order it was on the map, driving pretty quickly threw some parts and skipping parts all together, spending longer other places.

Big Round Top, Bottom middle is looking down the hill from the top and bottom left corner is looking back up at the Top. I just want to say that I would not have wanted to be one of the Confederates that had to charge up the hill.

Yes it was a beautiful day and the landscape in that area is gorgeous! But at the same time it's hard to think of a battlefield as being pretty. Sure the day we were there it was, but 150 years before it wasn't. (okay technically 150 years before the battle hadn't happened yet but you know what I mean)

Pickets Charge.  Top Left is from the Northern side, the others are from the Confederate side.  Again I would not have wanted to be one of the Confederates that had to charge, probably would have deserted before you could make me cause you could see for miles around it was so flat! No really from the Southern side you could just make out the monuments that were on the Northern side, so just imagine being part of the army slowly seeing the canons getting bigger and bigger as you marched at them. For that matter, imagine being on the Northern side seeing the sea of grey coming at you, that would have been pretty scary too.

After we'd seen most the battlefield that we wanted to we went to the cemetery which is actually I guess still part of the battlefield since they turned part of the battlefield into a cemetery…anyway we didn't get to see most of it was it was fenced off and closed for the night but I guess I can just be sure to go there next time I make it out there, which I very much hope that I do make it back there again sometime.

The cemetery. I think one of the saddest parts of the hole place was all the graves marked "Unknown" with a number.  Some of them had a state's name and a number, indicating that was the number of unknown solders from that state buried there. And it's not just that no one knew who they were when they were buried but also think of the families that never knew what happened to them. 

After that we got back on the road and drove home, most of the drive was at night, in the dark so I didn't really take many pictures.

however the clouds were pretty cool before light completely disappeared. 

And nothing really happened other then we drove through a really bad rain storm and had to pull over for a little bit so I'm not really sure why I'm still writing. We got home on Day 11, and even with as much fun as the trip had been I was very happy to get home and curl up in my own bed and go to sleep for a half the day.

That concluded the trip but you can be sure that even though I wanted to get all this done before it'd been a year since the trip that I'll post another post with some random fun pictures that didn't make it into the posts. (gangster pictures included) Hopefully I'll get that done very very soon and I hope to make other posts too about this that and the other. (if you want me to make a post about anything in particular just leave me a comment. ;D)