July 2008 - Gettysburg, PA

We are in Gettysburg, PA now having arrived here on July 11th. The first photo is the PA Memorial with Doug at the top looking down. The second photo shows my great grandfather's name on the PA Monument in Company H. Next are photos of Pickett's Charge. The single tree in the distant horizon is the "High Water Mark."










We will be camped here until the first week in September. We are selling aerial photos in the Westminster, MD area and Gettysburg was the closest campground we could find. It is about 22 miles. We think it worked out just great. We can spend our mornings seeing the sights and then do the selling in the evenings and on Saturdays when folks are home from work.



We are staying at Artillery Ridge Campground which sits right at the edge of the battlefield. In fact, it is both a campground and a horse park. They have the only concession of horseback rides onto the battlefield. Or you can camp here with your own horses and ride the battlefield trails. They have various corals for the horses right by the campsites as you can see from the photos. We feel like we are back home with horses snorting and whinnying around us! Homer has had to get used to horses again. The only negative is the horse flies who have a wicked bite! This first week here has been quite hot with the temps going up into the middle nineties. With the typical PA humidity, it makes us want to spend next summer further north!

Check out our Homer getting a drink on one of those dog-days-of-summer 95 degree days. He and Doug retreated to the air conditioned comfort of the motorhome. On the weekdays the campground was quite empty with only a few folks here and there. Now that it is Friday, it is filling up again. We, naturally, prefer the weekdays when we can swim in the afternoon and have the whole pool to ourselves! Such is life!

I have been doing some research here into my great-grandfather's Civil War service. I started this several years ago when we studied the Civil War in homeschool with Josh and we had found grandpa Critchlow's service record when cleaning out my parent's house. We had found the monument where grandpa camped here and also some details of his regiment. Only 10 or 12 of the men in his company came to Gettysburg on the second day of battle. The rest were stationed along the road to Winchester as sentries. We found that Grandpa was right below Little Round Top. On the one photo of his company's monument, you can see the summit of Little Round Top though a break in the close trees. The second photo is looking in the other direction with your back to Little Round Top. Since the day I found Grandpa's service record, one of my goals has been to trace his route during the Civil War of battles that he fought in. So this is a perfect camping location and timing to do the research and then next year to travel the route, Lord willing.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us. We'll try to post more photos as we see the area.

July 4th 2008 - Virginia

We spent the 4th of July visiting my (Nada's) brother in northern Virginia. It was good to see our newest nephew, Chase, since we had not seen him for almost a year. He looks so cute in his rec specs! It took me an hour to get that smile out of him in the second photo - he is very cautious and quiet around strangers. Once he started talking, though, watch out! In the first photo Grandma is "Row, row, row the boat" with him which he loves. He goes back and forth like he is rowing while she sings.

We also had the opportunity to visit with our friends, Rick and Karla. We went to lunch together and then to see Great Falls from the Virginia side. We had never been to the Virginia side. Josh and I had been to the Maryland side when we were doing homeschool studies on the canal system. The C & O Canal runs on the Maryland side and we took the National Park Service canal boat ride. The day when Josh and I were there, they actually closed the lookout point on the Maryland side because of high water. If you click on the last photo to enlarge it and look on the last photo right at the top of the rock formation, you will see the colored shirts of people on the Maryland side. That is the lookout point and the April day we were there many years ago, they closed that because the water level was coming up too close to the lookout. I remember it being so turbulent and water water everywhere that day, but I had no idea how deep it was. I wish I could look at our printed photos from back then. I'll have to remember to try and find those photos when we stop back at our storage.

Briar tries to entice Homer to swim!

On our way from New Holland, PA to Reston, Virginia, we had a lovely dinner and visit with our son Josh and his wife Vicky. We do miss seeing them as we travel but we try to keep in touch via phone. Their "puppy" Briar has really grown! Homer and Briar renewed their friendship with Briar getting the old guy to chase him and play. I've included several photos of them chasing sticks in the creek since it was a very hot evening. If you click on each photo it will enlarge so you can see them in the creek. Sorry about the photos, but I only had my iphone with me to take photos so I couldn't zoom in. Briar kept trying to get Homer in the swim of things but Homer, not being a water dog and unfamiliar with water, would only go in up to his belly. Briar did all the retrieving of the sticks that went into deeper water. Even after we came back to their house and sat on the porch talking, Briar still had the puppy energy to keep enticing Homer who was ready to take a nap! Briar is such a good dog and is so obedient to both Josh and Vicky.

6/08 Ocean City, NJ & motorhome clubs

We took a couple of days and went to Ocean City, NJ where Doug's mom was spending a week with Doug's brother's John and his family. She rented a house right on the beach/dunes and they managed to get her into the ocean up to her ankles. The first evening, a thunderstorm blew in from the west and we were able to get some beautiful photos of the angry sky. It was a really great time with family. Dee's sister and her family were staying at a house just a few blocks up the beach so several of them drove over to the campground to our motorhome to see where we live. Tara's little boy, was just enthralled with the motorhome so we had to take his photo sitting in the driver's seat. One day, maybe he will be like Doug driving his own motorhome.! Naturally, since we are not really beach and sand folks, we had to do the typical shore things of walking the boardwalk, buying salt water taffy, fudge, and peanut brittle made right there on the boardwalk. We also went looking for shells and enjoyed just moseying along the shore line with our feet in the cold water and the waves lapping over them. We had to say goodbye and leave the family early because we had a previous commitment to attend our old GMC motorhome club, the Colonial Travelers, at a rally in Quakertown, PA. There is a photo of Madame president, Janet bring the meeting to order in her colonial garb. It was good to visit with friends we haven't seen for over a year and to play Mexican Train dominoes with them. From the GMC Colonial Travelers we traveled to New Holland, PA where we attended our first Tiffin RV Net rally. It was a small representative group of folks from all over the USA who are part of an online forum. They have really helped us to get to know our new motorhome. When we sold our GMC we thought we would never find a group of people so willing to help and share with us, but we have found the Tiffin owners are just as welcoming and helpful as the GMC folks. The guys got together over coffee and donuts one morning to have a tech session and on the last morning the Joe Brey and the guys fixed breakfast for everyone. It was so much fun getting to know everyone.

Until next time.... Happy and safe trails to you.