Visit to Gettysburg

We didn't realize how close Gettysburg was until we drove there this morning. It only took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the site of one of the most important battles of the Civil War. It's a good thing - since these girls (especially Julia) won't remember much of today's visit, we can go back again when they're older.

Speaking of the girls, here they are, just outside the visitor's center, with Evelyn sitting on a bronze statue of President Lincoln. We spent a lot of time inside the visitor's center, watching the informational 20-minute movie about Gettysburg, checking out the cyclorama painting/display and browsing through the various museum exhibits. There was even a cafeteria inside the visitor's center, so we had a yummy lunch, too.
We didn't have much time to drive around before sunset, so we visited sites close to the visitor's center. Our first stop was the Culp's Hill observation tower. We all climbed to the top - even little Julia. Evelyn was interested in finding the landmarks and learning about battles that happened in different fields.

Julia was content to crawl around the circular bench.

There were several monuments and canons at the base of the observation tower. Evelyn wanted us to explain the monuments, and Julia wanted to touch every single artifact she could find.

Just before the sun went down, we walked through Soldiers' National Cemetery. The Soldiers' National Monument marks the spot where President Lincoln gave his infamous Gettysburg Address in November, 1863. We learned a lot today, and we're looking forward to driving around the battlefields and town when we make it back.