First Two Days on Our Trip

Time for the first official blog post from the DC trip! I've been twittering (as Kris said), but here's some substance.

Rachel and I departed MSP about 6:30 Saturday morning. She wasn't too excited about the departure time, but she's a trooper. We made good time and were in Chicago by lunchtime, where we made our only wrong turn. It's OK, we only went about 3 miles out of our way.

We made our way across Indiana and all the way to just outside Cleveland before we stopped for the evening. We stayed at possibly the worst Super 8 I've ever seen. Good thing we were just staying for about 10 hours. We had a quick sandwich at the restaurant next door, Rachel watched a DVD, then to bed for an early wakeup call.

Sunday morning, we got up early again (5 AM central time) to partake in the most awful continental breakfast I've ever had, and that's saying something. We got back on the road and made it Gettysburg by about 1:30 local time, although we weren't pushing ourselves too hard.

Some observations from the drive:

• If you want to appreciate the roads and other services we get in Minnesota, take a trip through on the midwestern toll roads. First off, they're not cheap (we probably paid about $30 in tolls, and I can't imagine commuting in those places). Second, you're trapped on the toll road, unless you want to get off somewhere and pay the toll, and are at the mercy of their travel plazas, some of which are good, I admit. Third, the roads aren't any better! Indiana's in particular hadn't been resurfaced in years, and the only good thing I can say is they wouldn't have to sand the roads in the winter because they're so uneven and rough you'd get traction no matter the weather.

• We didn't see too many interesting things on the drive since we stuck to the freeway, but we did descend into fog to cross the Cuyohoga river and drove up and down some very hilly highways in central Pennsylvania.

• Rachel and I do pretty well in the car. I listen to my Ipod through the car speakers, while Rachel listens to her Ipod with her earbuds. It's just like at home, except with Twizzlers.
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I was interested in seeing Gettysburg because I've never seen a Civil War battlefield before and have recently done some reading about the Battle of Gettysburg (see this link for a summary if you want). I knew we only had a half-day, but they weren't kidding when they said that you should plan at least a day, and possibly longer, for the trip. The visitor center is excellent and you could spend hours just in their museum. Then, you can do all kinds of tours on the battlefield. We opted to do the auto tour, which just means you follow the park service map and drive yourself around. Here's some things we saw (I'll try to do pictures tomorrow, as Blogger is choking on them tonight):

Lots of monuments. When we started, we read the first few inscriptions, then realized it was impossible to do so. Each Union regiment has at least one monument, and lots have several. The State of Pennsylvania has over 90 regimental monuments alone, including the largest monument at Gettysburg (as befits the home state).

They place the monuments where each regiment was located during the battle, and also mark the left and right boundaries of each regiment.

One of my favorite moments was finding the marker for the First Minnesota Regiment. I knew the story of how the regiment was sacrificed to save the Union lines (82% killed or wounded!), but Rachel didn't, and it was nice to acknowledge the bravery of the participants.

Gettysburg was obviously a town that pre-dated the battle, and still exists, but it's a little incongruous. Many of the farms are still worked, and it looks like they plant around the various monuments. You can be driving past where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address and run into a KFC. Plus, many of these monuments and markers were placed on private land. I took a picture of an artillery piece in someone's backyard near the swingset. How odd.

Tomorrow, after some sleeping in, is the Holocaust museum and dinner with my Marine Corps buddy Jim Nedland, who I haven't seen in 18 years and who is retiring from active duty a week from tomorrow.