Traisping the Northeast (Updated)

Today we drove out to Gettysburg. It was about 3 hours from southern Jersey. The drive was beautiful through rolling hills and farmland. In CA, except for some of the vineyards, the farmland is flat.

The national battleground site is amazing and mostly intact. There are a few things that are striking about it. One is that some buildings are right in the middle of the site. My sense is that most were rebuilt after the war by the residents as the pictures of the war show most everything devastated on the field (there are some buildings in town that have war damage). Second is the number of monuments. There are markers (some quite large) for every state (US and Confederate), divisions, battle positions, generals, etc. Third, you can walk pretty much anywhere and get the same view the the participants had.

We had a guide drive us around for two hours and he was really great with the boys and made things really come alive for all of us. I can't compare it to the audio tours since we didn't do one, but it was cool to be able to ask questions and get reasonable answers. The wife and I could have easily done another hour of the tour.

The visitor center is about a year old and is well done. The museum provides a good backdrop of the battle as well as a lot of detail about those three days and its aftermath. As you would imagine, there's a lot of space dedicated to the Gettysburg Address. Interesting in that the reaction of the newspapers to it was quite mixed, even in the north.

The boys really enjoyed the visit, especially the nephew. The HB got a bunch out of it as well and said he liked it. Not bad for this kind of side trip.

Next on our itinerary is a train ride from south Jersey to NYC. Looks like we'll have OK weather there. We've got a city pass to all kinds (MOMA, Empire State Building, the Met, etc.) of things and tickets to 39 Steps. I think we'll try to get some Lion King tickets at the half-off booths. Based on searching the web, etc., the bad economy has been tough on Broadway and there aren't many shows that are appealing (LOTS of revivals).

Bummer about Michigan St. UNC definitely showed in the tourney that they were the best team.