Pennsylvania!

Greetings from York!

From Ohio I jumped on the Turnpike and head for York, PA. I had never been here before. Actually, I'm not sure I'd ever heard of the town before - despite having lived in PA for a year many moons ago. That only happened after I met my York friends when they were visiting Anna Maria Island for a week last year. Sometimes you just get lucky and click with people and that's what my neighbor and I did with our York, PA friends. When they learned I was heading up the east coast, they invited me stop by. And since Ohio and the east coast are in the neighborhood of the coast anyway :-)... I did. And it has been so fun that I've threatened to stop traveling and stay.

The night I arrived we caught up and traded travel tales. Then this wonderful couple shared their plan for my visit. The first full day we went to Gettysburg. The second full day was a trip to Baltimore, but that's another post. I had never been to Gettysburg, looked forward to getting there, and had no clue what to expect. It is a necessary destination - even if you got to Gettysburg and didn't have time for the entire battlefield (or any for that matter), the film and Cyclorama at the Visitors' Center are well worth the trip and admission price ($12.50 adult w/o a discount like AAA).

Have any of you heard of or experienced a cyclorama? I had not. Apparently, in the 1800s here and in Europe massive canvas paintings were hung in special auditoriums with a center viewing platform for the audience. The final result of the canvas and any additional props like landscape and figurines was a 3D effect. Most of these cycloramas have been lost or destroyed. The Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama is one of the few remaining. It is 359ft long, 27ft high, and weighs about 3 tons.

Pickett's Charge: the last Confederate assault during the Battle of Gettysburg

The Valley of Death - that mound of boulders (rear left) is the Devil's Den. There were 51,000 casualties at Gettysburg.

Soldiers National Monument at the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

The film, New Birth of Freedom, and the Cyclorama were excellent. It is humbling to walk through the cemetery with all the marked and unmarked graves of soldiers from several wars dating back to the Civil War. And I found it impossible to feel anything other than grateful.

Baltimore is next!