Day #59 Monday October 8, 2007

Day #59

Monday October 8, 2007

Gettysburg, PA to Gettysburg, PA

63 miles today (26,250 - 26,313)

11,746 miles total

31 states total

The air is pretty humid this AM. Pretty sticky. A noisy air conditioner on a nearby RV kept me awake a lot of the night. Even with ear plugs, it was just too loud. But hey, if I had it, I’d use it too in this humid climate!

I got out about 9:30 to get to the bike shop. I took the back, scenic, country road route which even turned into gravel for about 2 miles. The countryside is beautiful here. There are huge open fields between patches and rows of thick woods. You can see for many miles and just count off the many hilltops and ridges as you look to the horizon. It’s very easy to imagine, as I’m riding, that soldiers from either side could be hiding in the tree line just waiting to ambush the other. It’s almost creepy.

The bike shop, Rider’s Edge in Gettysburg, PA can get me in tomorrow Tuesday.
I’ll have to somehow arrange a ride back to camp after dropping it off. It’s probably 6-7 miles, maybe a little more. After confirming with the bike shop, I came back to camp and paid up for 4 more nights, through Thursday night. Then I headed off to town to catch some of the sights of the battlefield. I went to the Visitor’s Center and toured around the inside at the museum a while. I studied the artifacts that had been collected for many years after the battle. After that, I made my way to the Gettysburg Nat’l Cemetery across the street. I know there is great loss here, but the strongest emotion I sense is the tremendous sense of purpose or cause displayed by those that fought here. I’m sure many were pressured, either by peers, family or just a sense of duty. Others might have had some ulterior motive, who knows. But I’m sure many felt so strongly in their cause that they were willing to take up arms against their enemy. Yet, I do NOT sense anything profound or positive toward the terrorists of this age who so willingly attacked us, their perceived enemies.

I had lunch at a place called Friendly’s and came back to camp to clean out the saddle bags before delivering the bike at 5PM. I had to pay the only transportation company in Gettysburg $15 to take me the 6-8 miles back to camp.
Beats walking in the heat!

I made dinner of canned Ravioli and meatballs…yummm… (My wife is SUCH a GOOD COOK! I miss home cookin’!) Had ice cream from the KOA store for dessert, checked email and turned in about 9PM.