Gettysburg

Last weekend, Carol and I took a mini-vacation in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour north of here. We had visited the battlefield in the 90s but didn't remember much. We also had a fun night staying in the town about a decade ago with the kids after a winter tubing trip. I recently read a book about the battle and suggested we spend a couple of nights there.

We drove up after work on Friday night and stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn.

This is not one of those weird "gravity" mystery houses.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. We were told that a U-Haul had hit the porte-cochère and almost knocked it down. We had to enter through the side entrance.

That night, we ate in the older, more touristy, part of town at a Revolutionary era restaurant/tavern called Dobbin House Tavern. There's a fancy restaurant upstairs with a glorious, packed, loud tavern underneath, which is where we ate. Fun atmosphere and a great meal.

Dobbin House Tavern (getting late, had started to empty out) 

The next day we went to the Visitors Center for the Gettsyburg National Military Park. We were somewhat confused as the building and attractions didn't match our memories. For example, we both remembered a theater presentation of the battle on a big relief map on the floor with embedded lights that illuminated the various formations -- but that wasn't there. A quick Google search told the tale. The original Visitors Center had been torn down and a new one, in a different area, built in 2009. The old "electric map" had been sold to a bank, where it's now displayed.

The two main attractions at the Visitors Center were a film on the Civil War and the battle, narrated by Morgan Freeman, and the Cyclorama, an 18th century "painting in the round" which was described as "the IMAX of its day". The film was excellently done, and the Cyclorama was stunning. There's also a really good Museum of the Battle of Gettysburg which walks you through events before and after the battle, and had three great "battle map" films recounting each of the three days of the battle, which was the beginning of the end of the Confederacy.

A small part of the Cyclorama.

Afterwards, Carol and I took the 2 hour bus tour of the battlefield, which was interesting and, of course, educational. It's always hard to imagine scale in your mind, so seeing the big empty fields on which some of the battle took place was eye-opening.

Big Round Top (right) and Little Round Top (left) from the Confederate point of view.

That night, we had dinner at a hamburger place, The Gettysburger, in the newer, upscale, hipster part of town. We had a relaxing time walking down the main street, checking out all the stores and restaurants. When we got back to the hotel, we played a two-player game of Terraforming Mars in the lobby.

On Sunday morning, we took a walk in the tranquil and lovely Gettysburg National Cemetery, which is where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. Then we caught the bus to travel about ten minutes to tour the nearby Eisenhower House and Farm, where Ike and Mamie Eisenhower lived before and after he was President. The grounds were beautiful and the house itself was well preserved, depicting a slice of life from the 1950s, but it wasn't spectacular.

The Visitors Center also has an excellent gift shop, and as soon as I saw this magnet, I knew I had to have it.

Before we left, we made a quick stop at the Gettysburg Outlets, a place we vaguely remembered from a decade ago, just to confirm that it was the place we had visited before (which it was).

All told, we had a fun weekend and would easily recommend Gettysburg as a weekend destination.