Road Trip: Ohio. Again...
Day 14: Monday, April 24, 2023 - Traveling home through Gettysburg, PA; Middletown, MD; and Harrisburg, PA
Day's statistics:
- Weather: upper 70s
- Steps: Steve 8,177; Linda 6,300
- Travel: 391 miles
The last day of this journey... 😞
Breakfast was a decent buffet that included pancakes, waffles, sausage, bagels, yogurt, and more.
Our original intent was to make the Flight 93 Memorial our first stop of the day. But since we visited the Tower of
Voices yesterday, we didn't need to. So we made our second planned stop our first stop.
Though we will be going to Gettysburg, we went just a little out of the way - 26 minutes of it, according to Google
Maps® - to visit the Washington Monument. No, not the one in DC, but the one in Middletown, MD.
The Washington Monument was a little over two hours away. We saw this interesting railroad tressel along the way.
We also passed by more wind turbines.
There was also a light snow flurry - barely visible - in the mountains. It only lasted a couple minutes.
Further on, we came across some construction. But unlike most sites, there wasn't someone holding a stop / slow
sign, but rather an automated traffic light system.
Some more mountains of western PA.
But of course the monument was in Maryland and we were currently in PA, so... we had to cross a state line.
We arrived at the park, and left the car in the parking lot.
We had to walk a short trail to get to the monument. And it turns out that the trail to the
monument is also part of the Appalachian Trail.
We started our trek toward the monument. There were signs along the way with historical information about George.
Near the top of the hill, the trail split, with the trail going to the monument button-hooking to the left.
I walked a few feet on the separate trail - so now I've been on part of the AT in three different states.
We continued on the path toward the monument, and came across one last historical information sign.
We finally arrived at the monument.
We grabbed a couple selfies at the monument.
There was an information sign about the monument.
I climbed up the narrow stairway to the top of the tower.
I was able to get a full 360° picture set. I originally stitched the entire sequence, but it was WAY too big -
wide - to be practical, so I did it in two pieces instead (the second is far more interesting than the first).
Lastly, walking around the monument for our selfies, we came across this engraving (darkened so it is actually more
readable) and plaque were on the side of the monument.
We hiked back down the trail, and headed out to our second to last destination of the trip.
We were in a little bit of a backwoods sort of place, and had to drive out to the highway.
It was an interesting monument, and worth the little bit that we had to go out of the way.
Our next destination was Gettysburg. But Gettysburg is back in PA. So we crossed another state line - our second to last one.
Getting to Gettysburg was about another hour away.
While we were driving on the somewhat backroads to get to the highway, we encountered a closed road. We were told by one of the
workers that there was a line down. We were detoured through a park, and it took us seven miles out of the way.
At 12:25, we finally arrived near the battlefield, but knew where we were going to eat lunch: Hunt's Cafe.
We reviewed the menu.
It was a rather small facility, but there was a lot crammed in there.
At the front was a coffee station. In the front corner was an ice cream counter. Next to the ice cream was a drink cooler. On the back
wall was another drink cooler. Between the two coolers were shelves with tee shirts and sweat shirts for sale. Hanging from the ceiling
were naval ship baseball caps. Along the side wall were signs. There were a number of signed photos from local and other celebrities.
And there were racks with bags of candy for sale. And more.
Linda ordered the tuna on a kieser roll, I ordered a chicken cheesesteak with mushrooms and peppers, and an order of fries to share.
This was probably going to be our last meal on the trip. And I did not get a picture of it for whatever reason.
The waitress showed up with an order. "Who had the tuna?" Linda said "I did." "And the cheesestake is yours."
I looked at it and said "Are there onions and mushrooms on here?" The waitress said "They must be on the bottom." Linda
said "This isn't a kaiser roll." I said "Maybe this isn't our order." The waitress looked up and saw the foodless table
behind Linda. "Did you order cheesestake and tune?" They said yes. She brought the order over to their table.
The meal was pretty good.
On the way out, the owner / cook was sitting outside on the deck in front (there was some outdoor seating). We talked to him for a little
bit and he told us how he got started with the naval ship baseball hats. A customer said her husband was rather sad. She was trying to
get a hat from his naval ship. The shop owner had one created and gave it to her to give to him. He apparently was completely ecstatic
about it and talked about the hat for months afterward. It changed his mood. The shop keeper decided to try to get as many as he could.
Then he found someone that could custom make them.
After lunch we headed into the park for our self-guided tour.
Ellen, the volunteer that helps Linda at church, had a copy of the audio tour on CD. We borrowed them, I ripped them, and put the audio
on our phones. We spent two hours listening to the audio guide while appreciating the history and solemnity of the location.
The audio guide directed us to about fifteen stops, and there was additional information as well. Some of the
stops were at monuments or battlesites (which usually also had monuments of some kind).
There were hundreds of monument and other markers around the battlefield, and even some battle sites. We got pictures of what we
thought were the more interesting items. Quite a number of the monuments are dedicated to states and or batallions that served.
They are presented in the order they were encountered while on the audio tour.
One of the stops was a twenty or so foot tower.
After the tower, we continued on and viewed more monuments, war relics, and battlefields.
Toward the end of our tour we came across this map. The scope of the battlefield is rather large. Our visit only covered a small portion
of it. Using the legend on the map, points 9 and 8 (opposite sides of the map) are nearly four miles apart as the crow flies.
After viewing the monuments, we were out on a town road. We pulled into a parking lot and got pictures of the Maryland
memorial and both sides of the Delaware memorial, including a separate close-up of the very bottom of the back.
I ran across the street and captured a shot of the cemetery from the corner.
Our journey out of the park brought to the entrance and visitor's center. Of course the VC houses the gift shop too.
And of course Linda wanted to visit said gift shop. So we stopped in, perused the store, used the facilities, and
then, after more than and hour and a half at Gettysburg, headed out to start our hour drive to Harrisburg.
This was our third capital that we are revisiting. The skyline on approach. It looked so different - grander (is that a
word?) - in person than in in the pictures.
We stopped at a Sheetz gas station. While I filled up, Linda went inside to get see if they sold shot glasses - but this
location didn't have any. As we were driving away, Linda smelled like coffee.
We stopped at this capital for the same reason as the other two: to get our selfie. When Linda adjusted her pose to get
her noggin out of the way, the breeze caused her hair to get messy - so either obscure the capital or her face. I guess
you now know where our priority is...
While we were there, we got a couple shots of the capital and dome. Again.
We also had a little time to spend if we wanted to, and we did. The only problem is museums are closed on Mondays in PA -
or at least in Harrisburg.
In our drive around the city, we passed this interesting looking riverside park, generators (?) not withstanding.
We still wanted to get coffee. We used our phones to find a Starbuck®, and mapped it. It took us... essentially next
door to where we got gas. It wasn't Linda that smelled like coffee when we got gas, it was the Starbuck®. So we drove
a couple miles just to wind up back where we were.
We took our order and sat in the car for a couple before getting back underway.
We returned to the highway and headed to our last destination: the ExpressPark South lot to pick up our car, and drop off
the rental at the Avis lot. There was some decorative work built into the sound wall on the interstate that the phone
camera did not pick up very well.
We pulled up in front of the ExpressPark lot, and Linda went in to retreive her car. We paid the balance of our parking fee,
moved everything out of the rental and into our car, and left the lot. We stopped at the gas station a few hundred yards down
the road from the lot in order to top off the tank and prevent the ~$40 per gallon fee Avis was going to charge if we didn't
return the car with a full tank.
Linda then followed me to the Avis lot. The Avis lot has just an entrance off the main roadway. Since everyone - EVERYONE -
dropping off a car no longer has a means of transportation out of the facility, one would think there would be some sort of
notch or place someone could pull in to pick up those dropping off their car - but there isn't. Hmm... Anyway, Linda was
able to wait right at the entrance for me and then pull back out into traffic as we left. Fortunately, no one wanted to pull
into the parking lot behind her.
The vehicle was dropped off with a final odometer reading of 33,750. That means we drove over 2,700 miles in the rental.
Today was a day of ddriving nearly six hours (not including the driving time in the Gettysburg park, nor the last leg to get
home). To recap, we started in Somerset, and drove to Middletown, Gettysburg, Harrisburg, and the Philadelphia airport.
Our last picture of the trip was our last state line crossing - the last of fourteen (assuming I counted right).
Our last leg of our journey was interrupted with a pause at the supermarket for perishables - milk, salad, fruit, lunch.
We pulled into the garage at about 9:30.
Home sweet home.
Our next major trip will be back-to-back Viking River Cruises this fall. And our next roadtrip is planned for next spring.