Catching Up

You know, it's a good thing that I have absolutely no desire to try to monetize this blog because I do a terrible job of keeping it up.  But don't worry; I have written and scheduled several entries for your reading pleasure.

I'm going to try to do some catching up in chronological order, starting with our trip to the Center of the Universe.

On Saturday, May 12th we drove down to Ashland, Virginia, which, I am not making this up, bills itself as the Center of the Universe.  It cracks me up every time we drive into town.  It is also where Jim went to school, at Randolph-Macon College.  They were having an alumni event and we hadn't been down in awhile, so we wanted to see what was new.  Turns out, the answer is a lot.  They have built new dorms, are building a new student center/bookstore and are reworking the football field.  We walked around campus, which is quite pretty, and dropped in to the event for music, food and beer.  We also found the brick that Jim bought (and several other bricks for friends and teammates).


Then on the way, we decided to detour out to see Chancellorsville, just because we could and neither of us had been there before.  We live in a place that is smack dab in the middle of a whole bunch of U.S. history and that is awesome.  That, and because I was going to exit there anyway to get a Sonic.  We got to the visitor's center and sidled up on a group listening to a ranger talk about the wounding and death of Stonewall Jackson, which was very interesting.  According to the ranger, Jackson probably would have survived his injury and amputation, if he had not been sick already.  Then we got the battlefield map and took most of the driving tour before we had to get back on the road home.

Gettysburg, PA

We were invited to attend a birthday celebration for Jim's high school youth pastor today in Westminster, MD. It turns out that Westminster is only about 30 miles from Gettysburg and it would have been a shame to get that close and not see the battlefield.

We have gone to the battlefield in Manassas before and were able to see the park in a couple of hours. I figured that Gettysburg would be the same, but I was mistaken. We could have spent a couple of days there reading all the markers. There is a 24-mile auto tour through the park. We spent three hours and stop for four of the 16 markers. I am glad that we sat down with the map before we started and picked the few sites that we wanted to be sure to see, otherwise we never would have gotten to them.

This is stop five, the Virginia Memorial. The monument to Virginia's soldiers is behind you in this picture and the field is the site of Picket's Charge on July 3rd, 1863.

We also stopped at the last stop, Soldier's National Cemetery, where Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address during the dedication. This monument marks the spot of his address.

The weather today could not have been nicer and we had a great time. Since it's only 2 hours from Washington, we will definitely have to go again for an overnight trip so we can spend more time exploring Gettysburg.

Manassas Battlefield

Last Sunday after church, we drove over to Manassas and walked around the battlefield. This was my first trip to a civil war site, even though the are everywhere in Virginia. Jim hadn't been since he was in school, either. We took the one mile walking tour of the first battle of Manassas. The weather was great and I learned more about Civil War history than I ever did in high school. We'll have to go back sometime and take the tour of the second battle.