Days 54, 55 & 56, Nov 23rd to 25th

We hope everyone had a most wonderful Thanksgiving.

We've covered ground in the last few days slowly heading west. We have had rain on and off through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. As we crossed the Mississippi River we saw wide spread flood damage along the freeway. This is from the flooding that occurred last May. It is amazing to still see stretches of land still covered with flood water. All the recent rain hasn't help much.

We will post more as we slowly make our way home.

This is a shot of the Mississippi River from Interstate 40 as we drove from Tennessee into Arkansas. The river looks like it's at it's highest point and ready to flood again.
This is a photo just off the freeway about 10 miles from the Mississippi River. There was wide spread flooding for about 25 miles along the interstate. At one point Interstate 40 was closed in both directions for several days. It still looked like a disaster area.

Day 53, Nov 22nd

One of our last stops before heading for home in earnest was at the Lost World Caverns in Lewisburg West Virginia.

This is a cave system that was discovered by a farmer who kept dumping trash down a hole in the ground he thought was a small sink hole. After several years, he wondered why the hole never filled up. He asked some spelunkers (a cave explorer) to check it out. They discovered a several caverns with beautiful calcite formations. They also discovered bones from a prehistoric cave bear. The formations are between 500,000 and 320 million years old!

We took a self guided tour of the cavern. This took us about an hour. It is amazing how water leaking through rocks over thousands of years create such awesome formations.

The photos have a greenish yellow hue which I believe is from the lights used to illuminate the cavern. I took a few photos with the flash to see the real color but without the flash you could see more detail.

We will be heading west over the next few days and if we come across anything exciting we will post more photos. Until then, Thanks for looking.

Driving from the caverns, we came across some cows. We just had to stop and let Dug check them out. Dug was happy as a clam (as you can see by the smile on his face).
There were names for each of these formations but in my infinite wisdom I forgot to take photos of the name tags for each. So I will not attempt to try and figure out each name. Sorry for no captions on the photos below.

Day 52, Nov 21st

Today we headed to Harper's Ferry Virginia for a visit to the Harper's Ferry National Park. From the park, we took a shuttle to the old town of Harper's Ferry. This is considered to be the origination of the fight for freedom of the slaves. John Brown (an abolitionist) and about 20 of his followers raided the armory at Harper's Ferry as a revolt to slavery. John Brown and his followers holed out in the Harper's Ferry Firehouse. The US Marines were able to defeat John Brown and his followers and take them into custody. John Brown and his followers we tried, convicted and hung for treason.

This town was a thriving community of 3,000 before the Civil War. After the Civil War, the town population dwindled down to about 100. This was due to fires, flooding and wages of war. I wish I had this much interest in History when I was a high school student.

After checking out the town, we drove down to Lewisburg Virginia. Tomorrow we will visit the Lost World Caverns and if we have time we will visit the Greenbriar Hotel (this is where a secret underground bunker was built to house the Congress and Senators in the event of a nuclear bomb attack). This top secret bunker was decommisioned after an investigative reporter wrote an article about it. Will be posting photos and our experience tomorrow.

This is the site of the armory that John Brown raided. It was destroyed in a fire. Just the foundation remains.

This one of the old buildings (a pub) remaining from the original town.

This is the firehouse where John Brown and his cohorts hid before being arrested by the US Marines.

Day 51, Nov 20th

We left the motorhome in Hagerstown and drove to Atlantic City New Jersey. We started off visiting the Ballys Wild West Casino. Lost $20 so we headed to Ceasars Casino. Lost $40 there so we decided to look for better luck at the Trump Casino :-{, no luck there either, after losing another $40 we figured that was enough for one day. We strolled the boardwalk and then headed back to the motorhome.

We finished the day by driving from Wilmington Delaware to Hagerstown PA.

A view of the Casino's from the boardwalk.

Day 50, Nov 19th

Today we drove from Gettysburg Pennsylvania to Hagerstown Maryland. We woke up this morning to a very cold 23 degrees.

As we were leaving town, we saw hundreds of people lining the streets downtown. They were waiting for a parade that honors the anniversary of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Many of the spectators were wearing period costumes, some as Union Soldiers, some as Confederate Soldiers.

Dug found out the hard way that a cold surface and a warm butt get stuck together. We pulled him off, he only left a few hairs behind.

Dowtown Gettysburg streets lined up waiting for a parade. We felt like we were in the parade!

Day 49, Nov 18th

Above photo is the Gettysburg Cyclorama

Today we took an audio tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield. We pretty much spent the entire day driving to the site of every battle at Gettysburg. We didn't take too many photos as there were hundreds of monuments depicting everything from Confederate Brigade Markers, Union Brigade Markers, Flank Markers, Battle Tablets (explaining the actions taken in this particular area), Corps & division Markers and Headquarter Markers.

What was amazing is the fact that these soldiers were lined up in a straight and orderly line and commanded to charge the lines. Many were mowed down by relentless musket and cannon fire. I guess at that time this was the gentleman's way to fight a war. Most of the dead were from the July 3rd battle called Pickett's Charge. Major General Pickett under instructions from Robert E. Lee charged the middle of the Union line in an attempt to break the Union line in two. To no avail, only a few Confederates made it to the Union line. The rest were mowed down from the volleys of fire by the Union Army.

That battle to this day is the largest loss US military personnel on American Soil.

This is a cannon on Little Round Top with two period soldiers (one Confederate & one Union)

Here is one of the cannons used during the battle.

This is a panorama view of the battlefield from Little Round Top.

Click on picture to make larger.

Days 48, Nov 17th

Today we drove to York Pennsylvania to take a tour of the Harley Davidson Factory...yeeeeehaaaaw. Ok, this is one stop I insisted we make. I'm pretty sure Sue liked it as well.

Once inside and while waiting for the tour to start, we meandered around the showroom and tried on a few bikes. I liked the big ones with the heated seats & handlebars. I think Sue liked the small and fast models. I think if they had a Harley powered Vespa there would be no question about it (for Sue).....sold.

On the tour (we couldn't take pictures) it was amazing to see that they start with rolls of steel and press them into just about every part you could think of that goes on the bikes. Where all the parts come together on the assembly line was an awesome sight. The parts are delivered by robotic carts that follow a magnetic line on the floor. Everything is timed perfect to match up just as it's needed.

We walked the assembly line to the very end where the bikes are run and tested then crated for shipment to all parts of the world.

After leaving York, we drove to Gettysburg where we ran into the Gettysburg Museum. We stopped and explored about. Inside the museum there were thousands of artifacts from the civil war along with descriptions of all the engagements that occurred in and around Gettysburg. There were over 48,000 casualties in the battle with over 8,000 killed.

While in the museum, we paid to see the Cyclorama painting of the war at Gettysburg. The Cyclorama is a 360 degree theater. You stand in the middle of the room and you get a 360 degree view of the battle. The scene is an oil painting that was completed in 1883 by a french artist depicting Pickett's Charge on July 3rd 1863. This painting is massive. It is 359' wide by 42' high. This really has to be seen if you ever get to Gettysburg. The battle scenes look very real and at times seem 3d.

We finally ended up at the Gettysburg Campground for a two nights stay.

Sue waving as she rides out of the showroom with her new HarleyVespa.

This is as close to the bike I will get (if I were rich...it's list price was 30K)

Sue & I having a chat with President Lincoln (a warm 40 degrees).

This is a bigger view of the title photo above. Just click on it for a bigger view.

A small section of the Cyclorama depicting the Gettysburg Battle

A small section of the Cyclorama showing Pickett's charge against the Unions forces.

This is a shot of the Cyclorama showing the rear of the battle with reinforcements showing up and a makeshift hospital.