Gettysburg 2016: After Action Reports

[Nathanb1]

We got home. Clothes are washed but not folded. Souvenirs are being sorted and distributed. Dogs and cats are receiving lots of love.

 

[PeterT]

I'm glad some of you enjoyed the Farnsworth. We went there our last night in town for our 23rd anniversary and were both disappointed. Our food wasn't very good (my rice dish was too salty to eat and my wife's crab cakes were almost burnt), the wine list was a joke, and the kitschy Civil War music soundtrack - which was rather loud at our table - just didn't fit the dinner house model (e.g. some guy singing "John Brown's body lies a-moulderin' in the grave" in a semi-operatic style with violin accompaniment) . And we paid a good price for it to boot.

We skipped dessert and went back to the brewery across the street from our motel that actually had a good dessert we'd had the day before, both got one to go, and went back to our room where we also drank the excellent bottle of Shiraz that
@PeterT had brought me all the way from Australia. Thanks gain Peter.

Sorry to be so negative but we really felt we'd been had. I guess this is my Yelp or Trip Advisor review.

That's disappointing John. Both my meals there were fine, but like Bee I went fairly safe with what I ordered. Glad you enjoyed the Pepperjack!

 

[Northern Light]

We got home. Clothes are washed but not folded. Souvenirs are being sorted and distributed. Dogs and cats are receiving lots of love.

It was a pleasure to get time to talk to you and Neil and @FZ11 on Saturday evening, Nate. Such a great weekend!

 

[Bee]

We got home. Clothes are washed but not folded. Souvenirs are being sorted and distributed. Dogs and cats are receiving lots of love.

My chance meeting of you and Neil set the tone for the rest of the trip. I am eternally grateful that you recognized me and what was going to be a solo dinner eventually ended up a full table! I loved our night excursion into the Iverson pits, to -- moonlit, no less. My great pleasure meeting both of you

 

[James N.]

...First off ... Me with General Warren on Little Round Top. It was very early morning on my last morning.
Quite surreal to be up there on my own, in the morning mist...

Maybe you'll be feeling a little less surreal now:

 

[Bee]

Maybe you'll be feeling a little less surreal now:

I was wondering why all the other pictures after this one were sideways

 

[pamc153PA]

I haven't really filed my after-battle report yet, not for any reason but that I've been super busy at school (start of the year is always hectic). But I'll be honest and say I have been thinking about the weekend, often--and so have many others, evidenced by how many pages this thread has grown to.

I have been to a couple other get-togethers of members at Gettysburg, and each one was good in its own way. This was by far the largest group of folks, and the most organized. I was a little leery that it was too organized, but it worked. I think we had a lot of people from far off that knew the battle but not the battlefield, and so it had to be organized. So it was organized, and the tours were scheduled in a nice flow, and there were plenty of opportunities to socialize as well, yet there were times someone like me, who had non-member friends I wanted to see and favorite places to go to on the battlefield, could do those things and not feel terribly left out of the group.

One of the best things for me--although the tours, all of them, were great--was meeting everyone, many of them I only ever knew by their avatars. There were those that I have known through the website for literally years but never met face to face, those I met through the site years ago and got to see again, and then a whole brigade of folks I finally got to meet beyond their screen names. Everyone was so nice, interesting, and funny that I felt right at home. We all developed inside jokes and had experiences together that will be hard to forget. Ask @JPK Huson 1863--we still joke about spilling coffee a couple years ago.

If there was anything that I was disappointed about, it was that there were people I somehow missed, people that I'd just met that I wish I'd had more time to get to know, and especially people that I have known for years that I didn't get nearly enough time to catch up with. That's actually a "good" thing, because there was so much to do and so many people to meet and hang out with, that I didn't get to do it all. What I did do, I totally enjoyed: the Mine Friday night and "street-walking" with @Nathanb1 and @Bonny Blue Flag; having lunch al fresco with the girls at Hunt's Battlefield Fries on Saturday; each and every tour I went on; taking James N., Mike and @Drew to Coster Avenue to see the mural; talking cameras with Neal, Mr. @Nathanb1; talking werewolves at Bern's bookstore and checking out the new park land with @Eric Wittenberg and Susan; getting lost on @Eric Wittenberg's Sickles tour because he forgot where Pitzer's Woods is (we caught up eventually). And way more than I have time to recount.

Thanks again to everyone who had a hand in putting the weekend together, mostly @War Horse, though also all the tour guides and anyone else who helped. It's hard work, and you all deserve a pat on the back!

I guess we'll have to do it again sometime very soon, huh?

 

[PeterT]

I was wondering why all the other pictures after this one were sideways

That's weird. They look fine on my iPad. Ghosts .....?

 

[Schwallanscher]

all pix are saved vertically - your ipad detects those which are upright and turns them 90° - if you copy a folder of pix to your computer you have to do it manually

 

[PeterT]

all pix are saved vertically - your ipad detects those which are upright and turns them 90° - if you copy a folder of pix to your computer you have to do it manually

Got it. Thanks.

 

[Northern Light]

Maybe you'll be feeling a little less surreal now:

View attachment 111812

Glad to see you up and about!

 

[John Winn]

Al explains how the extra credit portion of the tour will involve wind sprints out to Culp's Hill and back:

Eric explains how it was Bad Day At Black Rock for J.E.B.

 

[PeterT]

It must have been very early, as you two are still laying in!

NOW this post of yours makes sense! I was wondering what is she talking about?

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

If there was anything that I was disappointed about, it was that there were people I somehow missed, people that I'd just met that I wish I'd had more time to get to know, and especially people that I have known for years that I didn't get nearly enough time to catch up with

Exactly, but generally it is possible to use someone else's post to express your own experience. Have not filed a ' report ' either, only having made one day. It was quite overwhelming to be honest. All of a sudden seeing people you've known for years turned me into goo. Poor Marshall, I am sure ended up regretting introducing himself, was hugged, then Drew in the splash zone, managed to get him, poor man, and Ron, U.B., Northern Light, poor Nate- a few others. Followed Andrea into the elevator, feeling certain she was heading for the group. Transpired nope. Just her room hence meeting her as a stalker. Still, would have loved to have spent more time with so, so many.

Pam is always kind enough at these ( and accepts getting hugged goes with offering a spot in her car ) to allow me a seat, albeit one with plastic coverings. Getting lost following Eric and Susan , while traveling with Loyalty of Dogs was kind of a blast all by itself- remember we had Pam. You feel a little smug, hanging around someone bystanders walk up to and ask " Are you a guide? " OH yea, we're with her.

It is staggering thinking of what it took putting that together, a puzzle to know how to thank War Horse and those members who did their share making it amazing.

Have photos, will try to resize them soon, Eric's tour Day 2 inclusive of the tower. That tower climb was hysterical. There was a group of young men on the way up as we came down. You could hear them making the usual comments on how tough a climb it was, puffing a little. Then they encountered our group, median age a good 20 years older than the oldest there and not another peep did I hear on how difficult was the climb.

Unsure I'll be able to pull off the 2017 to Shiloh although it would be amazing. Thinking another mini meetup at Gettysburg would be wonderful, we've managed to pull one off most years.

 

[Bee]

Exactly, but generally it is possible to use someone else's post to express your own experience. Have not filed a ' report ' either, only having made one day. It was quite overwhelming to be honest.

Alas! The first face I met as I stepped off the plane in Harrisburg was yours, dear one. My eternal gratitude for you (and @Frums) for chauffeuring the bat around in the daylight! It was a most essential element of my trip to secure these rides, as I can no longer see well enough to drive. Beesides, the one-on-one time was precious, too...AND...special mention @diane Miss Annie here did not even flinch when I chose to have beans for breakfast (cold, straight from the can....hmmmm... a little too reminiscent of MRE's)

 

[diane]

Alas! The first face I met as I stepped off the plane in Harrisburg was yours, dear one. My eternal gratitude for you (and @Frums) for chauffeuring the bat around in the daylight! It was a most essential element of my trip to secure these rides, as I can no longer see well enough to drive. Beesides, the one-on-one time was precious, too...AND...special mention @diane Miss Annie here did not even flinch when I chose to have beans for breakfast (cold, straight from the can....hmmmm... a little too reminiscent of MRE's)

Hope you had some Spam on hand, too!

 

[Nathanb1]

Ten states in 20 days! But the best part was meeting you guys in person and getting to see old friends once more. Thanks to Neal's driving most of the way, shopping for underwear, loading and unloading every night, and filling in when a prescription mixup knocked me out a couple of days. Loved the tours we went on, love the pile of books we brought home, and loved seeing Powers Hill and patting Lo every day. Laura, please tell your friend I loved the part of his tour I was able to manage. My stamina level was, as I feared, not quite up to all the hiking, thanks to the dog bite that kept me from walking much the weeks before the trip!

One of my reasons for undertaking the trek was genealogy. I got to stand on land farmed by my family in the wilds of Sevier County, TN in 1790, a cemetery FULL of my family going back five generations in Leake Co., MS, and the land they farmed, the battlefields at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill I first visited as a four year old with my daddy, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Okolona, Brice's Crossroads, got to revisit Franklin with Neal and share my love of that place, Spring Hill and Rippavilla, Asheville, NC and those mountains you could see from the Henry land in TN. We drove down the Shenandoah Valley and visited Lee Chapel, and drank coffee in one of those wonderful coffee shops you only find in a college town. Mia doesn't know it, but I am sending her to college there.

Afterr Gettysburg, we headed west through PA and MD, to.... yes, John Denver was right.... almost heaven, West Virginia. Jackson's Mill may be heaven. Wheeling is amazing. Then Kentucky.... the Horse Park and Churchill Downs! Back down to Nashville and the Hermitage, down to Greenville, MS to stand at Ft. Pemberton, where the Sanders boys blew themselves up with that pesky torpedo mine. To Natchez in the daylight to see Longwood.... and stop at Jefferson College and Windsor Ruins. Mighty neat. We drove through Alcorn State... beautiful, historic campus, where the steps to Windsor were repurposed... very appropriate!

Then the turn home through Louisiana, where I made Neal practice saying Natchitoches and we watched the Aggies take apart Arkansas..... in JerryWorld, which made it better. And it began to rain after we crossed the Sabine..... and rained till we got home. My yard is gorgeous and my plants survived, so all is well.

My take from all this? America is an amazing place, full of friendly people and buzzing with innovation and industry. It was a privilege to meet them.... and you.

 

[Frums]

Alas! The first face I met as I stepped off the plane in Harrisburg was yours, dear one. My eternal gratitude for you (and @Frums) for chauffeuring the bat around in the daylight! It was a most essential element of my trip to secure these rides, as I can no longer see well enough to drive. Beesides, the one-on-one time was precious, too...AND...special mention @diane Miss Annie here did not even flinch when I chose to have beans for breakfast (cold, straight from the can....hmmmm... a little too reminiscent of MRE's)

It was my pleasure and will offer to you again if you make it to CWI 2017. I am planning on going!

 

[Northern Light]

Al explains how the extra credit portion of the tour will involve wind sprints out to Culp's Hill and back:

View attachment 111833


Eric explains how it was Bad Day At Black Rock for J.E.B.

View attachment 111834

Unsure I'll be able to pull off the 2017 to Shiloh although it would be amazing. Thinking another mini meetup at Gettysburg would be wonderful, we've managed to pull one off most years.

I'll pick you up on my way by, JPK, and we can talk all things Civil War, from hoop skirts to haversacks, as we head towards Mississippi, with a few bathroom breaks on the way!

 

[Bee]

It was my pleasure and will offer to you again if you make it to CWI 2017. I am planning on going!

Deposit paid: see you there, my friend!