The day started out grey, moist and humid. After getting going with hotel waffles saturated in syrup, we hit the road near 7:00. Today was a day of many state crossings; the days adventures would take us from Ohio into West Virginia to Maryland to West Virginia to Virginia to West Virginia to Maryland to Pennsylvania to Maryland. Golly do we have some screwy shaped states.
State 32 in Ohio led to US 50, both of these are four lane divided with generous speed limits. The sky spat rain on and off, at times at a moderate rate.
Things changed in West Virginia. US 50 turns to a narrow and slightly bumpy road with trees right along the side of the road. It is easy to see why West Virginia is the state with the most deer strikes. At least the weather was cooperating on this leg of the trip.
The weather changed after a stop for gas in Clarksburg. The skies opened up for a couple hours. The torrential rain coupled with too-slow drivers made the travel a bit more of a challenge for a while. At one point the rain had flooded the road to several inches of water. Since the Goldwing does not float, I slowed considerably. The jackwad truck driver behind me tried to pass, pushing a mountain of a wake of water - what an ass. Jackwad ended up getting stuck behind an extremely slow logging truck a short time later; perhaps a bit of unintentional justice.
Once we got to Winchester, Virginia the rain let up until near Frederick Maryland. We got to Frederick too early to check in to the hotel so we headed north to Gettysburg. Gettysburg is only about 30 minutes from Frederick. The museum at Gettysburg was pretty interesting, but I had a hard time getting interested in a lot of what was there. What I did find truly fascinating was the artifacts picked up from the battlefield immediately after the battle. Even more interesting were the artifacts from people's homes destroyed by bullets, cannon fire or shrapnel from the skirmish. Clocks, dishes, beds, desks, etc. all on display show the ravages of war on civilians. It is too easy to see these things as isolated. In one showing, there were building rafters salvaged from a house showing the destruction of a cannon ball going through multiple pieces of timber, wreaking havoc on each one.
The museum wasn't terribly crowded, but I certainly would not want to go there on a busy holiday weekend or the like.
After the museum we went to the cemetery. Perhaps not unexpectedly, there is a "normal" cemetery immediately next to the civil war cemetery - as long as there was a cemetery, may as well bury other people there must of been the reasoning.
There is a monument to the spot where Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address.
The number of graves, both marked and unmarked give a framework of the scale of what the three-day battle of Gettysburg must have been.
Once we had seen Gettysburg we headed back to Frederick. The weather had improved significantly. With a bit of looking, we found the Days Inn where we had reservations. Dinner was at Longhorn before turning in for the night, hoping for more adventure, if a little dryer.
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