Good Times in Gettysburg

Over the weekend, my mom and I drove up to Gettysburg for my

bro's family weekend shindig. Despite the fact that it rained all day Saturday, we had fun anyway. I got a sweet Gettysburg Family Weekend button, we took a quick trip to Maryland to get some fun drinks, and my mom got to watch the Penn State football game. We also met up with my aunt, uncle, cousin and her friend for "cocktail hour" in our hotel room.

Anyway, Sunday turned out to be beautiful so my mom, bro, and I decided to take a drive through the battlefields. With all the fall colors in full swing, the battlefields were spectacular. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of them with the special color filters on my camera. These pictures are of the monument dedicated to the soldiers from Virginia that fought in the

Civil War. I guess the soldiers deserve its hugeness, although I think that the fact that General Lee was also from Virginia could have a little something to do with it. He was kind of a big deal to the Confederacy. That's him on the horse at the top of the monument.

We also found the Pennsylvania monument which was pretty cool because the name of one of our ancestors is written on the wall.

While I was taking this picture (below right), I overheard a convo that was both funny and sad. You see, this statue is on a large rock and there is a sign under it that says "please don't touch the rock." This is because the rock and statue are part of the memorial to the troops of New York who held down the fort at Little Roundtop. Anyway this girl climbed up on the rock, I guess it was so that she could get a better picture of

Devil's Den, which is in the ravine below. Her dad yelled at her to get down, to which she responded with something to the effect of "It's ok, I'm only going to be up here for a second." When she took her picture and got down off the rock, her dad pulled her aside and said, "You know, I don't know which is worse. The number of people who died here, or your attitude. But, I'm thinking that it's your attitude."

Harsh. I hope her picture was good.