Gettysburg

After visiting the Smyrna, Delaware, skatepark, we drove to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where we spent the rest of the day camping and hiking at Caledonia State Park.  We spent all of Tuesday learning about the Civil War, to our great enrichment.  The new visitor center is brand new, with state of the art, interactive, touch screen exhibits alongside authentic, 150 year old artifacts.  The free, outdoor ranger guided tours helped Logan and I understand the miles wide scope of the battlefield and the vagaries of the terrain.  

I also recommend the self-guided walking tours described in free audio podcasts and downloadable maps, available at CivilWarTraveler.com.  At the end of the “Pickett’s Charge” podcast, the narrator describes a reunion of Union and Confederate soldiers held on location, 24 years after that battle.  They shook hands across the same field stone wall over which they had fought, and then they retired to a shady picnic where they traded flags, drank beer together, and cracked jokes.  Is there any better reason to be a patriot?