Gettysburg

Day 13 September 25, 2024 Gettysburg 61.7 miles

Well its another rainy gray day. Rob replaced a blown fuse before starting the car. When the cowl light switch is turned on a fuse gets blown. Woodie hesitated to start but Rob said that was just getting the choke correct. Sure good to hear that motor run.

The first stop for today is the Visitors Center for the Gettysburg Battlefield. A private foundation operates the facility so there are additional charges for everything. You can take walking tours, driving tours, bus tours or watch a movie or tour the museum. All have a fee. We watched the movie which was well done and gave a good overview of major events over the course of the three day battle. Then we went upstairs to hear additional information and to see a huge oil painting of the battle. The cyclorama is 377 feet long, 42 feet high and weighs 12.5 tons. It is displayed in the round so you feel as though you are in the middle of the battle. This is one of the largest oil paintings on display in the world.

We left there and began a driving tour of the battlefield. That is when you get a real feel for the massive size of the battle. About 160,000 soldiers fought in the battle. Of those about 7,000 were killed. Numerous others were wounded, captured or disappeared. The grounds look so peaceful now. Today they looked a little eerie with the rain and mist. Even with the nasty weather lots of people in private cars and buses were touring the grounds. Parking is a serious problem. Not enough to handle the volume of tourists. It must be really bad in the summer if it is this bad now.

We were provided with a box lunch that we ate at one of the stops. Actually worked out well. The sandwiches were made on soft bagels so they were easy to eat.

Once we completed the battlefield we were to go to the WWII Experience. On the way there the car simply stopped running on the way up a small hill. Rob stopped the car as soon as possible and set the emergency brake and a tire chock. Then he started checking. Before he got too far a group of city or county workers came along and towed us off the main road and onto a side road. Then pushed the car onto the side of the road so traffic could go by. Rob replaced the distributor cap with the old one and dried off the inside. Then the car would start again.

We got to the Experience just fine. The collection in this building was all owned by one man. Why you would collect this I am not sure but it was well displayed. Lots of volunteers were working there today.

On the way back we decided to stop and have pizza for supper. The Wednesday special was all you could eat crab. Connie didn’t think she would enjoy the $50 meal that well. So we had crab pizza. Our waitress was a really nice lady who told us she had lived in the area for 78 years.

We came back to our hotel briefly and then returned to the host hotel to attend the awards presentation and the graduation of the freshman. Freshman are first time Glidden Tour attendees. Nearly half the attendees this year were freshman. On the way to the hotel we saw several deer cross the road in front of us. One of the drivers on the tour hit a deer at slow speed and damaged his car. On the return to our hotel we never got over 25 mph. The wet roads in the rain are very difficult to see and our headlights aren’t that good even on a sunny day.