Norton travels, USA and beyond

Friday, April 12, 2013

Baltimore, Gettysburg & Amish country

Our friends we visited, Ed & Judy Bush, have a beautiful house in the countryside west of Baltimore. I went with Judy to visit her neighbor whose farmhouse, built in 1780, is on the National Historic Houses Registry. We also fed and groomed her horses and had a nice walk through the woods. On Saturday we went into Baltimore and saw Fort McHenry. The flag flying over that fort was the inspiration for Francis Scott Key’s writing “The Star Spangled Banner” after a battle during the War of 1812. After that we walked around the inner harbor area followed by dinner in Little Italy. We finished off the day at Camden Yards to see the Orioles play the Minnesota Twins. It was a good game, even though they lost. Orioles fans are very enthusiastic supporters of their team. There are more pics of our time with the Bushes on Judy’s blog: http://whistlingprairie.blogspot.com/

On Monday we drove 40 miles north into Pennsylvania to visit Gettysburg. The Visitor’s Center has an excellent movie, museum and Cyclorama (an enormous painting that is over 100 years old). We were impressed before even going to the battlefields. Then we took the driving tour around most of the battle sites. They encircle the town on three sides, and are full of cannons, monuments and markers to show the location of each brigade of soldiers during the three days of battle. The rolling hills surrounded by woods make it an awe inspiring sight, you really can feel that it is hallowed ground.

Before we ended our visit with the Bushes, we enjoyed vocal and harp solos by their daughter, Amanda. It had been about 14 years since we’d seen these dear friends, and it was nice to catch up and also enjoy the talents of one of their three daughters. From Maryland we headed into the Pennsylvania Dutch country. The local farms and green rolling hills in this area are so peaceful. On Wednesday we took a buggy ride with an Amish farmer on a “cookie run” where he took us to his farm and we enjoyed cookies made by his daughter. We shopped in towns named Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse. The quilts were so beautiful they almost made me cry; the prices made Chuck want to cry. But they are locally handmade, not on machines in China. We also enjoyed a buffet of Amish cooking, yum!

A few miles to the north is the town of Hershey. We went there to the Hershey Museum and the World of Chocolate. We enjoyed their corporate PR but did not visit the amusement park that isn’t open midweek this time of year. We finished up the week winding our way to the quaint town of Lititz. The historic parts of these towns are so different than western towns that we are used to. But the suburbs are like anywhere else. We went to some new theaters and saw “42”, and excellent movie we highly recommend to all.

Ed & Chuck at Ft. McHenry

Camden Yards

Orioles game

Bushes neighboring farm in Maryland

Gettysburg cyclorama

Gettysburg battle position

Gettysburg battlefield

Amish farmland

Amish farm

Amish farmer

Amish commuters

covered bridge

Hershey's Chocolate World

Lititz shops

Friday, April 5, 2013

Jamestown, Yorktown, DC, and Manassas

We certainly covered a lot of history this week. The two other sites in the Historic Triangle are Jamestown and Yorktown. Jamestown was the site of the first permanent English settlement in America. There is now a visitor’s center/museum, recreated Indian village (remember Pocahontas?), an English village and three ships that are replicas of the ones that arrived here in 1607. Much of the history is told from the writings of John Smith. Yorktown is the battlefield site of Washington’s victory over Cornwallis that ended the Revolutionary War in 1781. There is a nice visitor’s center, recreated settlement and military encampment.

After finishing our Williamsburg experience we moved on to Northern Virginia, near Washington, DC. It should have been a two hour drive, but took quite a bit longer because as we go into the metropolitan area we hit traffic and road work too. The next day we took the Metro train into the city. That was more time consuming and expensive than we had anticipated, then when we got there the line for the National Archives was about two hours. So instead we went to the Smithsonian Museum of US History. It has lots of cool stuff about the presidents, first ladies, military, transportation and more than I can remember. Then we walked around the national mall to see the Washington Monument and Capitol building. Since we’ve been to DC before (this is my fourth time), we skipped most of the other stuff which was overcrowded anyway. Its spring break for lots of families, but you could only tell from the crowds, not from the weather. The cherry blossoms should have been blooming, but most trees are still bare here.

The following day we went out to Dulles Airport where the Smithsonian has a newer Air & Space Museum that holds lots of bigger things that won’t fit in the DC one. Some of the items are the space shuttle Discovery, the Enola Gay, an F-14 Tomcat, a Concorde, and many planes from the beginnings of aviation to the present. It’s a beautiful museum. After that we drove over to Manassas National Battlefield. This was the site of the first battle (also called Bull Run) of the Civil War and the Second Battle of Manassas a year later. It is very sobering to walk around the fields where over 4,000 soldiers died in those two battles. Today we drove to Sykesville, Maryland, just west of Baltimore, visiting some old friends from when we were newlyweds, many years ago.

Jamestown Indian hut

Jamestown ships

Jamestown gunsmith

Yorktown Revolutionary soldiers

Yorktown military encampment

Yorktown village

Washington DC Capitol building

National Archives

Enola Gay

Space Shuttle Discovery

Manassas Battlefield

Friday, March 29, 2013

Williamsburg, Virginia

The state of North Carolina has some very nice museums – art, history, and science, and all free! We went to these on Saturday and Monday, delaying our departure from Raleigh until Tuesday because of inclement weather. It was hard to leave anyway, my sister lives too far away for me to see her very often. But we said our goodbyes (my niece was especially sad to see Okie leave) and headed for Williamsburg, Virginia. We stopped along the way at the Petersburg National Battlefield, site of one of the large final battles of the Civil War.

Colonial Williamsburg is one of my favorite places (I’ve been before) because of all the history that is so well portrayed here. I think it is somewhere every American should visit in their lifetime. There are many historic buildings to visit, some original and others reconstructed, from the time of the Revolutionary War. All the workers are costumed in the 1700’s styles and play the parts of townspeople of the era. There are many trade shops with tradesmen to show how their craft is done. We also learned about the legal system and daily life of the colonial time period. We saw General Washington review the troops in anticipation of the looming battle against Cornwallis, and heard the fife and drum corps play. A couple of the highlights were listening to George Washington discuss the events taking place that were leading the colonies toward war, and Thomas Jefferson discussing his ideas about government. The actors did an excellent job conveying the concerns of their era as well as instilling a greater appreciation of what they accomplished. But some of their concerns such as debt, taxation, size of government, and liberty are some of the same issues we still face today. An important message of Williamsburg is to learn from history so that mistakes of the past are not repeated. This area is part of the Historic Triangle, with two more important historical sites to visit before we leave. If you don’t know what they are, tune in next week!