Gettysburg Day Two

Friday afternoon we took the second part of our audio tour to the National Military Park, which is within a few miles from where we are staying by the way. First Here are some pictures of the horses in our campground

The second day is just as interesting. There are more than 1,400 monuments and and markers that take the place of those fallen soldiers as a reminder to the national of its most trying time in history. And of course it was a place of renewed hope , where President Lincoln gave his famous speech, the Gettysburg Address.

General Robert E. Lee

Pennsylvania Memorial


Over 3 million vistors each year come to this hallowed ground to discover what an important part of America's history took place here.

                                                                               

Gettysburg

On Wednesday we arrived at Artillery Ridge Campground and National Riding Stables. It is an interesting campground as campers can bring their horses.

Site right across from ours

They have stables and corral for the horses as well.

We are in a back area that is nice and quiet.
Thursday, we went over to the Gettysburg vistor center. We decided to buy an audio tour, which has 2 cds and a book with map. This way we can just drive in our car to tour the battlefield area instead of taking a bus tour. There are a number of set stops where you can park and listen to the corresponding information on the cds that give information on the particular area and its part in the 3 day battle here.The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory in the summer of 1863 that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and most ambitious invasion of the North.  It is hard to image looking at this beautiful area that  it was the war's bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties in only 3 days, more than all the years in the war in Vietnam!! At each stop after listening to the cd, we got and walked around the area taking some pictures and taking in the views. It is an amazing place.

As there are 3 days in the battle, we decided to split the auto tour into three days as well. We did some grocery shopping in town and then made our way back home for a relaxing evening.

Work on the Motor Home and a Little Paddling

Our next stop was to be Gettysburg. However, we decided to take the MH in for service first as it is past due and there is a Freighliner service center in the area. Joe called and they said to bring it in. When we got there, we went over what needs to be done for the 24,000 mile service. More than just a oil change I am afraid. It will take all day and into the evening to get everything done in this one day. Glad we don't do this to often(last time 18 months ago) as it is rather expensive. It needs to be done though. We decided to go back to Mosquito Lake for some paddling as it is a nice day and we have time to kill while waiting for the coach to be done. We packed up some things in the Jeep and took off. We first stopped first a Wal Mart to get an oil change for the Jeep. Must as well get that taken care of now as well. Once that was done, we got some lunch and then headed to Mosquito Lake. It was pretty windy but we still had a nice paddle. Got a good work out paddling against the wind. Coming back we hardly had to paddle at all.

We went back to the service center to check on the progress around 6 o'clock. They thought it might be about 3 hours more. We decided to get some dinner.  I got shrimp scampi and Joe got a taco salad. He should have sent it back. It was  not good and definitely overcooked. Oh well, we have had some great food throughout our trips, you are bound to get a bad meal once in awhile. We went back to the service center and  stayed in the waiting area, watching some TV and Joe did a little work on the computer. It was almost midnight when it was finally done. We just drove for about a half hour until we found a rest stop for the night. Then it is on to Gettysburg.

Mosquito Lake State Park

The weather hasn't been the greatest. Mostly cloudy and some rain. What else is new this summer. The rain must be following us. We were able to do some bike riding through the park. The park is pretty big and great for bike riding which a lot of people there were doing.

Someone got a good spot

Joe riding through the Forest

We rode along the water and down to the Boat Launch to check out where to paddle when the weather is nicer.

Another day in Indiana

This morning we went to a class on digital cameras put on by an English gentleman by the name of Phil May. He had a great sense of humor. Got some tips I wasn't aware of. We went to several more Geeks on Tours classes, one on picassa, beyond the basics and one on internet connections on the road. The seminars have been most helpful and made this detour to attend the rally worthwhile. We signed up for the Geeks on Tours website that gives us access to all their videos online and were also given a dvd that has them as well.

Our last class was another on Alaska and was a panel discussion with 3 people who have traveled to Alaska a number of times.

We went out to dinner at Applebees where we used our $10 coupon. The food was okay. At 700 we went to the last gathering where they gave out more door prices and Nick told a number of funny stories.

Friday we got up and after having one last donut and coffee packed up and headed out for Mosquito Lake State Park, our next stop for the Labor Day weekend. We had made reservations ahead of time as a lot of the parks we looked at were full for the 3 day Holiday. This state park is in

Cortland, Ohio about an hour from Akron and Cleveland. We have a nice spot. It isn't on the water but is surrounded by trees and is very pretty.                                                                                         

More seminars and McKinney Washtub Two

We went to four seminars today. We feel like we are back in school. We went to three more of Geeks on Tours seminars, one on beginning blogging, one beyond the basics of blogging and GPS Navigation and Trip Planning.
Jim and Chris make the classes fun and easy to follow. In the GPS seminar, they gave out a trial cd for Streets and Trips. It is a great navigation tool. You can use it with your GPS or even download to your smart phone that  has GPS installed such as the Droid. I think that is our next purchase as we have Verizon now and had been thinking of getting the Droid anyway.
The last seminar of the day was on Preparing to drive in Alaska put on by Dennis Hill, who owns RV Driving School, which is the driving school we went to back in El Cajon at the start of this adventure. He is very funny and really got us excited about going to Alaska one of these days. There were a number of people there that had been there 2 or 3 times. They just love it.
The evening entertainment was a concert by McKinney Washtub Two. They are a husband and wife team. Whitt and Judy McKinney make music on everything from guitar and mandolin, to washboards, spoons, a flute, and even a kazoo!

Gypsy Journal Seminars

Tuesday morning we went and had coffee and donuts and then started our day of seminars. They had quite a lot to choose from on subjects such as fire safety and other issues related to rvs, computer related such as blogging, using picasa and google earth, , crafts, beginning kayaking and bicycling and many others. Our first class was on fire safety. Of course they start off by scaring you showing a film on how fast a motorhome can burn up. But it is a very important subject and we ended up buying some fire extinguishers to keep in different parts of the motorhome including one that goes behind the refrigerator which is one of the main places fires start. Who knew? They gave a lot of other could tips of this subject. After this we went through the vendor tents and then after having some lunch went to a few more seminars. One is managing digital photos with picasa and the other email issues on the road. They were put on by Geeks on Tour. The "geeks" are Chris and Jim Guld, who have been computer support professionals since the 80's. They decided to full time rv in 2003 and put on seminars and write tutorials and have videos on various computer subjects that are of interest to those of us on the road as will as anyone interested in learning about picasa, blogging and other internet related subjects. We found the seminars to be very helpful.
In the evening Nick had some interesting entertainment. The Hoosier Honey Beauty contest. Pretty funny.

The winner with Nick Russell

The winner was Jim Guld from Geeks on Tour that we didn't realize until the next day when we went to another of their seminars.