Bottom line, They won, We lost.

Departed:  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania  12:00

Arrived:  Natural Bridge, Virginia  4:45 p.m.

Natural Bridge KOA

232 miles

Hey friends,

First thing this morning we took off to the Gettysburg National Park Visitor’s Center. A very impressive place in itself. We saw a short video about the Battle of Gettysburg narrated by Morgan Freeman., love his voice!  I guess the biggest thing I came away with was, what was General Lee thinking. He had more men, but trying to storm the Union soldiers when they had higher ground just was not going to work. Hard to imagine 50,000 soldiers lost in that one battle (pretty even on each side). And then for the people of Gettysburg, which only numbered about 2400 at the time, to try to deal with all of the wounded and dead.  After the video we saw an awesome cyclorama of the battle by some French guy. They did such a good job it was hard to tell where the painting ended and the foreground props began.  We then rode around to some of the sites where the different battle outbreaks took place in the area around Gettysburg. When you then see the terrain of the area where the Confederates were trying to storm the Union, you really see why it was such a bloody battle. 

You can't really tell from this picture but the Confederate troops at one point were going up this wheat field with no cover to the Union troops at the top of the ridge.

One good think about Bill and I and our sightseeing mode, we are a lot alike, that we are happy hitting the highlights and getting the gist of the area and moving on to something new. The Bell’s are like that, too, so it made for smooth sightseeing.

 So after hitting the highlights we head west to I-81 which we hop on to speed south.  We got through the rest of Pennsylvania, a few miles of Maryland, and a few miles of West Virginia, before getting to Virginia for the majority of this afternoon. It was a lovely drive through the Shenendoa Valley, with valley in the foreground and the Appalachian Mountains in the background. 

We have stopped at a campground that we have actually stayed at before at Natural Bridge, Virginia, not far from Lexington, Va, the home of Washington and Lee University. Lovely shaded campground, although not too level. I wish it didn’t cost 20.00 to go see the Natural Bridge, as it is a very neat area, but we have been there, done that, so we  aren’t going to pay 20 just to get another picture. Although, I know my blogging buddies would love it!!

So it looks to be a quiet night, light supper, computer and tv time. A bit too hot for much else. The last time we were here I believe it was cool enough, that we broke out the jackets, built a fire and made smores….. how about smores in the microwave,  my kind of camping!

Happy Camping,

Carla