A Monumental Small Town

We have just come from Washington DC, a very large city, with numerous monuments and statues strewn throughout its environs. They seemed to be everywhere, but in fact there can be a good mile or two between some of these special places.

Not so for Gettysburg. In a rectangular area of 3 by 5 miles, there are over 1,400 monuments, statues, and plaques.

This little town was the spot where two armies met and had a small disagreement. The resolving of this argument left about 51,000 men dead or wounded – all of them around or within the town that only had a population of 2,500.

The town is larger now, thanks to a bustling tourist industry. It has roads specially designed to carry cars and buses in a pattern built to display the most number of monuments in the most efficient manner and still not disturb the townspeople’s lives.

Most people drive or take a tour bus, but because the area of interest is small, there are other ways of getting around to see everything. There are bicycle tours, horseback tours, and segway tours. I would even suggest walking except that there are no sidewalks outside of town. Besides, you do enough trudging over fields and rocks to get to some of the statues that you really don’t need the extra exercise.

The statues are in places depicting where certain generals or other important people died or did an act worthy of noting.  Since battles do not stay nicely on the clean roads and paved drives, you sometimes find these works of art in remote areas, like right in the middle of fields or hidden in the woods. 

Monuments and plaques are put where a regiment held its ground, with smaller stones on either side showing the right and left flanks or the rear. Really, you can literally trip over them, there are so many.

And then there are the cenotaphs, often huge monuments to the soldiers of each state. These can be graphic or whimsical, ornate or simple.

Interpretive signs will detail for you all the tactical strategies that the officers used as the battle raged. And also any errors in those strategies, and failures that occurred due to mistakes made. In short, far more than I had ever wanted to know about war.

It is admirable that the government has kept most of the battlefield out of private hands, and with buildings and fences just as they were during the battle in 1863. It gives you an idea of what obstacles the infantry and cavalry faced during advances, charges, and retreats.

They have also set up the cannons where they would have stood during battle, aimed out over the fields and hills.

The only thing “new” is the cemetery. It was created a few months later, to give the Union soldiers a proper place to be buried. The poor Confederates were shipped home or buried in a group. 

But even the “winning” team had so many unidentified dead, that most of the stones in the cemetery just have the word “Unknown” on it, or sometimes only a number.

Ok, we all know the words, so let’s sing it together:

 

War, huh,

Good God, y’all

What is it good for?

Absolutely nothin’……

W

A Slice of Cherry Pie

It was the best time to be there, it was the worst time to be there. (Apologies to Charles Dickens)

We came to Washington DC to see the cherry blossoms, and indeed, it was the perfect time to see the cherry trees bloom. 

We watched as the trees started out bare, with no leaves and barely the nubs of buds. Despite optomistic newspaper predictions, we thought we had misjudged our timing.

But over the span of just one week, clusters of these tiny, fragile blossoms began appearing on the stark branches. A tree that we had not even noticed earlier in the week would be bursting with petals by the time we left.

 But we learned an important lesson.

In the north, March break is in March. In much of the States, it seems, Spring Break can be the second week of April. So, in our northern ignorance, we visited Washington, DC at the height of its tourist season.

We experienced masses of blooms and masses of people. Simultaneously.

But although we came for the cherry blossoms, we stayed for the man made attractions.

When it comes to monuments, the capital of the United States does it right.

Every day, for six days straight, we journeyed into the core of the city to see something amazing. 

Considering that we used transit each day, and that it cost us a small fortune over the week, it was a good thing that all the museums and monuments were free to the public.

We started out with the obvious. We walked the National Mall to see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House.

The Mall is just a big long park, with grass and geometrically shaped ponds. It appears to be well used by walkers, picnickers, kite flyers, and bike and segway riders.

Well used, and well loved, much like this Charlie Brown kite tree that we found along the way. 

Kites on the top, kids on the bottom. Actually, an apt description of the National Mall, too.

The Lincoln Memorial is breathtaking. Right from the moment you climb the long, long set of stairs, up to the time you see the much-larger-than-life statue of Abraham Lincoln, surrounded by his most famous speeches. 

You recover your breath just in time to go back down again. And those steps are steep going back down.

We spent a day at the Arlington Cemetery and saw the Iwo Jima Memorial, surprisingly set outside of the cemetery grounds.

Perhaps it is only proper that they saved the space for the soldiers that deserve it.

During a night tour we saw the monument of Martin Luther King, Jr.  With 2 large granite rocks framing the entrance, and the sculpture of King carved out of the matching third, it was just as impressive as if we had seen it in full light.

Then there were the building tours. The Capitol building tour was incredibly efficient, even with the other 15,000 people that toured it the same day we did. 

The 5 pubs that we checked out during the week were not nearly as crowded, but just as satisfying.

Although we stepped into four different museums of the Smithsonian complex, it was the first that was most memorable. The Air and Space Museum was packed stem to stern. It was the perfect time for the power to go out, and for the authorities to declare an evacuation of the building. It gave us time to have a drink at a pub nearby, and to return to find much more elbow room than before. They should have done that all week.

We didn’t have nearly enough time to properly view the museums. We got a taste of some, but plan to come back so that we can really savour them again at a slower pace and discover several more.

Just like the cherries. A slice is not enough when there is a whole pie to enjoy. W

Southern Hospitality

After spending a few days in a swamp, we stopped for a week in higher country in the northwest corner of South Carolina. On a good day, you can see the Blue Ridge Mountains from the high point of Spartanburg.  Ah, yes.  Yet another place we would like to travel. 

We didn’t stay too close to the city, but rather visited with friends outside of town. They live in the country on a lot with several acres of woods. I was told to watch my step if I took a walk, as they have had copperhead rattlesnakes at times. Given the colour of the fallen leaves under the trees, I understand how easy it would be to accidentally step on one.

Our trailer was parked right outside their kitchen garden. There were several birdfeeders beside us, well used by the sparrows, cardinals, and even a couple of wild turkeys.

We met this couple when we traveled on our caravan down the east coast. A true southern gentleman and southern belle, we really enjoyed their company. It was difficult not to imitate the lovely soft drawl in their voices. It is such an attractive sound.

A long, curvy driveway leads to their beautiful one story brick house. It's the end of March, spring is starting to come to this part of the country, and the tops of the trees are beginning to show green. There is a "barn" beside the house, a specially built garage to hold their Airstream motorhome, wood shop, tractor, and assorted other toys.

These lovely people invited us into their home and their lives with no hesitation. I certainly hope they didn’t regret it.

I especially hope they didn’t regret mentioning to Hubby that they were tired of the carpet in their motorhome, and would like to have a wooden floor like ours. Four days later, it was done. Even with the laid back attitude of this southern state, it is hard to get my man to relax.

Meanwhile, we got to experience real southern grits, southern sweet tea, and pulled pork BBQ. In turn, we prepared spring rolls, stir fry, and pancit for them.

Our trailer stayed happily outside their barn while the men toiled in their man cave. The women enjoyed several excursions in the city.  We shopped, attended Garden Club with other southern ladies, and waited in a line of at least 140 cars for the grandchildren to get out of school so we could pick them up. They do have school buses here, but they do not appear to be popular.

It was nice to experience a real southern lifestyle. It's even nicer that this charming couple says they would like for us to come back again.

It is the people we meet that make our travelling life so very interesting.

We are very glad we met these ones.

W

The Wild Side

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Trouble in Paradise

Lovely little spot, Paradise is.






Stuck in the middle of nowhere, 20 miles to the closest town, and by extension, any shopping at all. How could I get into trouble here?














Paradise Park is a nicely laid out Airstream community. It is small in comparison to the last Airstream park we stayed in, but has many of the same amenities, and each lot comes with a level concrete pad to park on. And your own personal palm tree.











We landed here at the best time possible. March in southern Florida is hot and sunny. I made good use of both the outdoor pool and their extensive library.

Unfortunately, hubby wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I did. He was called away for a family emergency, leaving me as sole occupant of our trailer for 11 days.

I was so absolutely devastated by having time to myself that, upon dropping him at the airport, I promptly splurged on an hour-long spa pedicure. I also stopped at the grocery store to pick up lots of salad makings - I am not the cook in this partnership.







This wasn't the first time I have been left to entertain myself at home. There was a whole summer where hubby worked in another city and only commuted back on weekends. In that case, we were at a campground that held a full mix of residents: families, singles, young, and old. So my protective partner did his best to hide from everyone that I would be alone and vulnerable. As if.

Here, however, in an exclusive retirement community, he told everyone he met that I would be by myself, and could they keep an eye out for me? The irony was, as soon as he left, it became obvious that these seniors just didn't remember that conversation. Many of the neighbors he had spoken to wondered aloud to me later why they hadn't seen my hubby around.




But they saw me. I walked, and biked, and swam. I joined aerobics, played bingo, and watched movies. I joined the golf crowd for lunch at the Airstream trailer turned into a cafeteria kitchen.

I even managed to pull out the big awning when the sun was unmerciful at heating up my tin can.

And, only when I absolutely had to, I dumped the holding waste tanks.







But, as with all good things, this too had to come to an end. The hot sun, loved and appreciated by me, wasn't so nice to my home. Although the awning kept the heat off the windows, the aluminum roof was exposed and warmed the glue that held up the pretty vinyl on my ceiling. A mere day before hubby was due back, I had a sagging ceiling to contend with. I tried spray glue, and smoothing it out with a rolling pin, but it would not stay.

I guess I can get into trouble in Paradise.






Well, in the end hubby got home just fine, temporarily fixed my ceiling, and now manhandles the awning by himself again. I even got him to enjoy some pool time.


It really is more fun to get into trouble together.

W

Aluminum City

Aluminum was the name of the game this week.

According to the singer/comedian who finished off the 5 evenings of entertainment, we are living in semi-precious metal.

Aluminum was all around us at this rally.  We were surrounded by Airstreams, about 120 of them. Big ones, little ones, old ones, new ones.

They parked us in the field of the Sarasota Fairgrounds. Being the shy, retiring types that we are, we learned our neighbors’ names in record time. On one side we had a couple from Michigan with their large, docile dog; an intriguing mix of standard poodle and Newfoundland. On the other was a couple from our own province, who live barely more than a ferry ride away from our summer site.   Ain’t life funny?

The utilities were scarce, as this was not a regular campground, but a fairground.  They hooked our entire line of 15 trailers to one water spigot with a technique called a “daisy chain”, requiring two hoses and a plumbing Y per rig.

 The first hose is attached to the source, the Y put on the end, and then another hose goes from one side of the Y to their trailer. The next trailer adds a hose to the other side of the Y, puts his Y on the end of his first hose and uses his second hose for his personal supply. This goes down the entire length of the line. 

Also, our electricity had to be shared among three trailers, meaning the 15 amp pedestal, divided up, gave us 5 amps each. That is not enough to run the coffee maker, but if you turn off the radio you can make toast.  Life is all about adaptation.

We didn’t have to make our own coffee anyway. Morning coffee was served each day from a little Airstream Café. It sure tasted better that way.

Seminars were held during the week on subjects like travelling and maintenance. I learned a few steps of Tai Chi, while hubby was shown how to make an old trailer sparkle in the sun. 

I see new tools in our future.

The organizers did their best to educate us on our chosen lifestyle. We learned about solar panels and batteries, the proper way to hoist your awning, and living well off the grid.

I’ve never met an Airstreamer who was not as proud as punch of their rig. So on the last day, they held an open house, where you could walk around and visit inside any trailer with their door open. These people are not modest. They are happy to brag about all the work they’ve done and any alterations they’ve made. Others are quick to point out all the original and “vintage” features on trailers as old as I am. One even had its first icebox still in it.

Guess that tells you how old I am, eh?

With all these goings on, we didn’t get much chance to explore Sarasota. But we did make the effort to see the winter training grounds of the famous Royal Lipizzaner Stallions. Despite a rainy day, these gorgeous animals were taken outside to practice their drills and ballet moves in front of an appreciative audience. 

We even got a chance to visit the stallions in their stalls.

Other than that little side trip, we lived and breathed aluminum all week. Even the entertainment was centered on trailer life, with songs and comedy routines frequently referring to it. Vendors pushed sparkly tops with Airstreams designs and Airstream jewelry was on sale.

Aluminum may only be semi-precious as a metal, but for this group, it’s as good as gold.

W