in retrospect: land of the free

I hadn't been to Gettysburg since my junior year of high school. Lucky for me, some friends decided to roadtrip there for an afternoon and invited me to tag along.

We stopped at a garage sale somewhere in Maryland. Jess, Liz, and Shannon didn't by anything, but I got a really pretty cake platter for $1.50 and a lip-stick red, 80's retro, lipstick red purse for $1.00. I'm desperately trying to find an outfit to wear with said super-hot purse.


Somewhere else in Maryland we stumbled on to a side-quest to find our way to this giant gold statue of the Virgin of Lourdes. From the highway it looks like it's floating above the trees.


Upon entering Gettysburg, we stumbled into the Maryland 1st Artillery group giving a demonstration on musketry, early machine guns, and cannons of the Civil War era. Their commander told me we could join for the price of artillery training ($10) and yearly dues ($16). If they wouldn't pester me about travelling with them I'd totally do this.




"O beautiful for spacious skys, for amber waves of grain...."


The Eternal Peacelight Memorial


The touring train. Looks just like something from story book, ya?


I've always been partial to the North Carolina memorial. We learned on the "take your own tour" CD that North Carolina lost more troops than any other southern state. And we learned later at the Gettysburg Soldier's Nat'l Cemetery that the bitterness of the community was so strong that they didn't bury any of the fallen rebel soldiers until after the war had ended. Two years after the battle. Eww.


Memorial to General Rober E. Lee.


At the memorial on the summit of Little Round Top, there were three little girls blowing bubbles. Such juxtaposition against the battlefield....


Another re-enactment group at the Pennsylvania memorial. As I noticed the varying ages of the actors, I caught a heart-wrenching glimpse of what it would have been like to see my brothers, friends, and lovers go to war without email, care packages, or even reliable post.


Memorial to Lincoln's Gettysburg address. You can see how the ground was littered with shiny copper pennies.