Last Saturday, Seth and I left on the first vacation we have ever taken (since our honeymoon). We arrived in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, very late at night. Why Kittanning, you ask? Seth's brother Luke, and his wife, Kayla, moved there shortly after marrying last summer after Luke took the youth pastorate at the Kittanning First Church of God. Their apartment is so cute!
On Sunday morning, we visited Luke and Kayla's church. It was wonderful to see them in their element! We even got to ride the church bus to and from service, since Luke is in charge of the bus ministry. This afforded us the opportunity to visit more fully with some members of the congregation, including some very cute old people.
Upon arriving home from church, Seth suggested that he and Luke cook for the ladies. This is how the afternoon went...
The boys did a great job--pan fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and biscuits!
After lunch, we went on a walk at Riverside Park in Kittanning. I loved the old buildings, the bridge, and the river!
On Monday, we took off for Gettysburg, which was the bulk of our vacation. Seth and Luke rode together, and Kayla and I rode together. We took two cars because Seth and I left directly from Gettysburg to come home. I had such a wonderful visit with Kayla. I am so blessed to have another "sister" in my life. Of course, our visiting caused us to get a little lost on the way to our destination, but we got there in the end, and the boys had fun rubbing in our faces that they had arrived at the hotel 20 minutes before us.
As soon as we got to the hotel, we took off for dinner. We chose to eat at General Pickett's Buffet. The food was good and the conversations interesting. The waiter spent most of our meal talking with the people behind us about finding human remains on the battlefield. Apparently the park service goes out at night and reburies them...Conspiracy theory, anyone?
Since we were so stuffed and it was not yet dark, the four of us walked the battlefield at the location of Pickett's Charge. Across the road along the union line were a number of monuments, which we explored until it became too dark to see.
The next morning, we were able to tour the town and battlefield with a private tour guide. Our guide talked for three solid hours about the battle. I didn't understand half of what he said, but it was still a great opportunity. My favorite part was seeing the statue of Robert E. Lee riding Traveller. The book Traveller by Richard Adams, which describes the Civil War through the eyes of Lee's horse, is one of my all-time favorites!
After the tour, we headed back to the hotel to eat lunch. We had brought lunch food along to save money on eating out. As soon as we arrived in the room, the boys parked on the beds to watch...the HISTORY channel. As if we hadn't had enough history! These guys are more alike than they realize!
That afternoon, we went back to the Gettysburg National Military Park to tour the museum, Cyclorama painting, and bookstore. I was amazed at how huge the museum was. The highlight for me was seeing Gen. Lee's cot, writing desk, and gloves. The cyclorama is a 360 degree painting created by a French artist and restored for placement in the new visitor's center just a few years ago. The bookstore is almost as large as the Borders in Evansville, and an hour almost wasn't enough time to spend there.
After finishing up at the Visitor's Center, we went to the National Cemetery where Lincoln delivered the famous Gettysburg Address. This speech is my favorite of all time for a couple of reasons. For one, did you know that Lincoln actually was not the main speaker at the dedication of the cemetery? He was thrown onto the program at the last minute and delivered a surprisingly short address, yet no one remembers who the keynote speaker was or about what he spoke. That just goes to show that Lincoln was a brilliant orator. Secondly, my dad made us memorize the speech in sophomore honors English. I remember working very hard on that assignment and carefully considering the words I was committing to memory. Here are the four of us standing at the site where Lincoln delivered his famed speech.
Our next stop was Little Round Top, which is the part of the Battle of Gettysburg that seemed to interest Seth the most. No wonder this was the coveted battle position. The union army could see everything from here!
By this time we were getting very hungry, so before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at Tommy's Pizza to sample the local fare. I, for one, was very impressed with the pizza! So was Luke!
Before bed, we went swimming in the world's smallest indoor hotel pool. Despite the pool's modest size, it was a treat to get to go swimming!
The next morning, we enjoyed walking around downtown Gettysburg. Mostly we did some window-shopping and looked for bullet holes.
Around 11, it was time to part ways and head for home, or so we thought. When we were about 30 minutes into our journey, I realized that we had left our nice pillows and blanket at the hotel. So we turned back to retrieve those items. All told, this detour cost us an hour in an already 11-hour journey!
Despite this set-back, we had a wonderful trip home. We traveled south through Western Virginia on I-81, which runs between the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountain ranges. These views of God's wonderful creation were pure eye candy!
Other than a few stops here and there, we headed straight home, arriving in the middle of the night and sleeping throughout the next day. We couldn't have asked for a better vacation! When is the next one???!!!
