Time to leave New York and start our next leg of tripping USA. Barry was quite anxious about driving out of New York, as I am not the greatest of navigators, but we did have a borrowed Tom Tom with American maps installed, which would help guide us, as well as written directions to get us out of New York and the correct highways to take to Gettysburg.
After collecting the car and loading the suitcases, time came to set up the Tom Tom with the directions and the damn thing wouldn't work. No maps to navigate us through Manhattan, the Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey Turnpike and various interstate highway changes. Then Barry remembered his Samsung Smartphone. On the previous Saturday night he met up with a work colleague also holidaying in New York, and he gave Barry some tuition on how to use his phone for navigating. So out with the smart phone, finding the navigation app, entered the destination by voice command and away we went. The drive out of Manhattan was really easy, straight down 83rd street across all the avenues until we came to the FDR which runs along the East River. Although we had to cross 4 lanes of traffic to get on the New Jersey turnpike nobody blasted their horns at us. What a relief, it must have been the different state plates on the car. We cruised down the I 78 keeping up with the traffic at 80mph, when the battery on the phone went flat after a few hours. So now we resorted to our written directions and finally found the next highway and sign that lead us to Gettysburg.
After arriving at the motel we went for a walk down the main street to the town centre. Gettysburg is interesting but definitely aimed at the tourist market. The town was preparing for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War so was adorned with flags. Lots of military and tourist shops, as well as many historic homes and lovely old churches. Barry was keen to buy a Civil War revolver and thought we were going into a gun shop, until I steered him around the corner to a far more interesting shop.
Day one of sightseeing the motel owner gave us a cd to use in the car, which allowed us to do our own tour by following the directions as well as learning the history of the battlefields, which consist of 10,000 acres, more than 1450 monuments, markers and plagues on the fields and all criss-crossed by more than 40 miles of avenues. For the size of this area everything is very well maintained. I find the monuments remarkable, not only for their size but the detail in the figures.
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| ONE OF THE MANY AVENUES |
Day two we visited the museum and visitor center, where we saw a cyclorama light and sound show. The was an amazing show, as the original painting was by a French artist and completed in 1883. The story about the cyclorama painting is very interesting and can found on Wikipedia.
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| Barry's photos of the amazing Cyclorama painting |
Outside the visitor centre Barry made a new friend called Abe.
We completed our drive around the battlefields and came across this imposing monument.
The Pennsylvania Memorial stands 110 feet plus the statue on top adds an extra 21 foot. The monument was dedicated in 1910 to the 34,000 Pennsylvania men who fought in this battle.
Gettysburg also has a well established college which started in 1832, and was called Pennsylvania College.
The above hall was used as a hospital during the Civil War and Pennsylvania College was later renamed in 1921 to Gettysburg College. What an impressive college.
