Our Gettysburg adventure approaches it's end. Phil and Jackie left after lunch and the rest of us will depart tomorrow morning. It's been a great vacation. This morning Phil and I rode the last bit of the park we hadn't seen -- the East Cavalry Fields. We've ridden some every day.
We arrived Sunday afternoon with Phil and Jackie arriving in the early evening. Our plan for coming worked out perfectly. We had left around 7am and driven until 1pm where we stopped briefly in Scranton to go to the Coney Island Lunch. We had gone there first several years ago when visiting Steamtown. The original location was closed, but their newer location was open. It was as good as we remembered. During the evening, we had a few beers and talked on how to approach the park. In the end, we decided to mostly follow the tour in order.
On Monday, we rode out to McPherson
Ridge where the Battle of Gettysburg began. We stopped at Reynolds Woods and took some pictures by cannon positioned there and then rode on to the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. We didn't stop to read the signs for each brigade recognized along the roads, but began to gain some perspective on the size of the conflict and the number of men who came here to fight. We rode on to Oak Ridge and then to Barlow Knoll, where the Union forces were routed on the first day of the battle. We followed their line of retreat through town, detouring briefly through Gettysburg College. The other's headed back to the campsite, but Phil and I rode around the visitor's center and the High Water Mark trail. This was an area I had visited with the family several years ago so I knew it already. At the Bloody Angle, we looked across the field toward Seminary Ridge, where Picket's Charge had started and decided to ride across from one side to the other. We made good progress, had chosen the wrong trail to follow. Eventually it bogged down in a muddy wallow where they were building a new fence (Picket's Fence, as Philip dubbed it). We had to push our bikes through a few of the deepest, muckiest bits, but eventually reached the Tennessee monument. The ride back, from the Virginia monument went better. It gave us a real sense of appreciation for how long the confederate troops were out there, under the July sun.
On Tuesday, we resumed the tour beginning along the top of Seminary Ridge, where we'd been the day before. We'd packed lunches and planned to spend the better part of the day following the auto tour route. We visited the North Carolina memorial, we stopped to see the statue of General Longstreet. We stopped early at the picnic area near Warfield Ridge and ate an early lunch. The next part of the loop took us up Big Round Top and then Little Round Top. By the time we reached the monument to the 20th Maine, Charlie was ready to head back by the shortest route, so we did that. By heading North on Sedgwick Avenue, we got back to the car in 20 minutes or so. It was good to head back at that point, as we arrived to have lunch with Ricard and Katy and afterwards we drove back to the Round Tops to hike on the summit trail and then visit the other parts of Little Round Top and the Devil's Den.
On Wednesday, Phil and I intended to finish the ride we'd begun the day before, but we couldn't see a good way to get back to the point where we'd left off. We debated riding the wrong way on the road or trying to concieve of a way to convince people that our bikes were horses so we could ride on the equestrian trail. (Bicycles are excluded from the equestrian trail, stupidly.) Eventually, we decided there wasn't a better solution than to just reride the parts of the trail we'd ridden the day before. We got an early start and rode hard, stopping briefly at one site we'd missed the day before: a small drive between the Virginia Memorial and Pitzer Woods led to a monument comemorating a group of Union sharpshooters who had reconoitered to the rear of the confederate position on the night of the second day and developed intelligence related to Picket's Charge. We stopped at the summit of Little Round Top to rest and cool off. A guide was explaining to a tour group about the inaccuracies of the movie about Gettysburg. We rode on through the Devil's Den, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard. When we reached the visitor's center, we decided we had enough energy left to ride out to Spangler's Spring and Culp's Hill. When we reached the top, we decided we didn't have enough energy left to climb to the top of the observation tower, though. It was hot. When we visited Benner's Hill later, however, we spotted the top of the observation tower and knew where it was.
On Thursday, we drove out to the East Cavalry Fields and rode the trail. We had heard that George Armstrong Custer had been in the battle, but we were surprised to see that he'd been riding at the head of three Michigan cavalry regiments (or brigades or something). He led a charge that repulsed a confederate offensive, reportedly calling out, "Come on, you Wolverines!" There was little parking at this site, so we stopped at a small pull-off near the middle and rode quick to both ends and back.
It was a perfect vacation -- the weather held off until the last night when we started getting a little rain. Everyone made it and stayed healthy. All of us were able to accomplish the things we wanted: Phil and I got our rides in, Jackie and Katy visited the spinning store, and Alisa and the boys got to visit Diona and Scott. It was superb.
My new camera worked great! I took huge numbers of pictures. I'll post some soon, but there's no time now. I leave Saturday morning super early for BioQUEST. I should have time at BioQUEST to update more. I will take time to post only one picture. Check out tomorrow's page.