Gettysburg

Updated 28 October 2008

During our recent trip to Pennsylvania we stopped in for a history field trip without our homeschooled children to the Gettysburg Battlefield and visited the brand NEW Gettysburg National Military Park (Museum and Visitor) center.

This is located about 1 mile from previous vistor center. The entire entrance area is covered with thousands of beautiful black eye susans. There are at least 3 HUGE parking lots including plenty of spots for buses, RVs, etc. When we visited we had to park in the bus area because all other parking lots were full! Quite a change from 2007 when their other dinky parking lot wasn't even 1/2 full.

Museum, Movie, and Cyclorama

Entrance to the Museum, Movie, and Cyclorama is about $7.50 for adults. The museum is very modern and contains lots of displays and artificats. The movie is realistic as well as modern. It is narrated by Morgan Freeman. After the movie you are escorted to the Cyclorama where you get perspective of Picketts Charge (the third and last day of the battle). They cyclorama is a 360 painting of the battlefield. Definately worth the admission price!



Our kids even took part in the National Park Junior Ranger program (which was revamped for Gettysburg in 2008) and earned their patch. There was about a dozen activities that could be done each worth a specific amount of points. I found that many of the questions were rather difficult. Some sections are geared for younger kids (e.g., monument match). Touring the battlefield was worth 6 points which is what we did.
We followed the audio CDs - auto tour that we bought last year and toured the battlefield. We stopped at almost every stop and enjoyed the sites. I suggest you give yourself 2 to 3 hours to tour the entire battlefield. Its very amazing to imagine the bloodshed, war, that occurred on the fields.



Going Home

We left Gettysburg around 6PM and immediately got into traffic (from an accident -- i presume) on PA15 (they diverted us from the highway for 2-3 miles -- my "low" gas light came on, moving only 5 MPH, but fortunatley we were not stranded). Just a little bit stressful to state the least.

A couple hours later, we left NJ 287 to get some food. (I believe there should be a law against resturants posting their signs on the highway especially if that resturant is 5 miles inland!). Once leaving it was difficult to turn around and our GPS quickly got us onto another highway and that route led us right into NY city (long story -- worthy of a blog entry). We got home safely around 2AM but we have a great Penn trip!

No more field or road trips for now. Time to get back to the basics!

Webshots pictures are located here. Last years pictures are here.