Gettysburg National Military Park
My friend Jimy White and my uncle Tom McHatton had Scrapple for breakfast, then loaded up in the rental car for a drive to see Gettysburg. I had seen the Gettysburg site almost 40 years ago when I was a kid. Jimy is a real history buff and he pushed us to make the two hour drive to see the battleground of Gettyburg. My memories as a kid told me that there wasn't much to see there, just open fields where once there was one of the worst battles in history. My uncle Tom told us that things had changed a bit over there in recent years.
We got more excited as we approached the signs to Gettysburg. It was a nice and warm day. We drove up to the main Gettysburg museum site where we went through some exhibits, the gift store, watched an IMAX video about Gettysburg, and then we watched an incredible multimedia presentation in a giant round room where we call one of the world's largest paintings come alive. I never knew about the giant round painting of Gettysburg. It is called the Gettysburg Cyclorama Painting. It was orginally painted in the late 1800s by French artist Paul Philippoteaux. It is almost 400 feet in length and in the round room, you feel you are actually in the middle of the Gettysburg battle. I really recommend you see and experience this if you ever get a chance. Its worth the time to see this incredible artifact come to life.
Then Jimy, Tom, and I jumped in our rental car to take the Car Tour of the actual Gettysburg battle. We had purchased a set of CDs which has stopping points marked along a driving route throughout the battleground. The CDs tell you the real story of what happened at each location. This was the best part of the day, and we were really sad to see the sun fall into darkness. I learned more about the Gettysburg battle and the real people who fought and died there. I recommend you take the audio tour, because you will never look at Gettysburg the same way ever. We drove back that night to my uncle's house and we could not stop talking about the great time we had at Gettysburg. We saw the spot where Abraham Lincoln gave that famous speech. We saw where the Picketts Charge happened. We saw Little Round Top and saw the view from where Robert E Lee watched the battle, and watched his forces fall.