Postcards from the Journey - Day Six

First, let me say that it has been impossible to blog every day with all that we've been doing, so I'm writing day six almost a week late!!!

I fully intend to catch up, but it will take me awhile. 

Day six we travel to Philadelphia to spend a few awesome hours.  What a beautiful city!  I don't know what I was expecting, but OMG!  Parks, statues, beautiful architecture, TONS of history, and friendly people.  I wish I had a few weeks to spend there.

Our stop in Philly was primarily to see the Liberty Bell and to see if we could find the library that housed the documents and journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition (hereafter I will simply refer to them as L & C).

Much like Gettysburg there were teachers herding classes of children of all sizes and shapes everywhere.  Unlike Gettysburg there were also tours from China, Japan, Zimbabwe, and Southern Uzbekistan,and each tourist stopped in front of every sign, placard, and crack in the side walk to have his or her picture taken with the wondrous object.  And then of course there were the group photos of each tour in front of each wondrous object.

In the past this would have ended all hope of my enjoying this city.  I HATE CROWDS.  But something amazing happened - None of that bothered me this time.  My inner child was dancing and shouting and having a great time!  Don't worry, my outer adult was somewhat more sensible, but there was a smile there that would have surprised anyone that knew me well.

We found the Liberty Bell with no problem.  It is a free exhibit open to all, first come first serve.  The line was longer than the ones I remember in Disneyland.  No problem.  Worth the wait.  The park ranger giving the history of the bell was fascinating, insightful, and thorough.  He lost most of the school children after the first minute or two, and most of the foreign viewers after "hello,"  but Pam and I listened to the whole thing.

There is also a tour of Liberty Hall where the Continental Congress sat and the Declaration of Independence was signed, but you have to get tickets to go on the tour and with the crowds we were only able to get tickets for late afternoon - so we skipped that and went searching for L & C. 

We didn't have to go far.  On the same block was an exhibit of the American Philosophical Society called "Of Elephants and Roses."  We were advised that they were the keepers of all things L & C.  So we scurried over to the exhibit to see if they could help us.  As we entered the exhibit Pam asked if it would be possible to see any of the L & C journals.  The face of the young man at the top of the stairs lit up.  He almost bounded down the stairs to inform us that he would be glad to take us across to the street to the main APS Library to show us a display of L & C's.  He and the other curator - an older woman - were so enamored at finding another history buff in my wife that they fairly drooled all over themselves, sharing little tidbits about the wondrous doings of former great men.

There were two small exhibits in the main library - most of which is private.  One contained two journals of L & C.  The curator told us that all of the journals are displayed on a rotation that allows them to avoid over exporsure to the elements.  It would have been nice to see more, but a little taste is better than none at all.

The other exhibit was on the writing of the Declaration of Independence.  There was a draft that Thomas Jefferson had sent to Benjamin Franklin with annotated amendments asking for his approval.

Fascinating.  How did the American Philosophical Society end up with these documents?  Their past president happened to be Thomas Jefferson and their membership includes a long list of names of the men that have formed the history of this nation.

From there we went to a display of art of the important men and women in early Philadelphia history.  The work was mostly that of Charles Wilson Peale.

This is the building that held the art collection.

From there we decided to lunch at the City Tavern a place that was frequented by many of the members of the Continental Congress back in their day and has been recently restored.  The chef uses recipes that were common in the colonial period.  Pam had a salmon dish and the Martha Washington Chocolate Mousse Cake.

 I had the George Washington Porter Ale and the beef pie.

From there we visited the site of Benjamin Franklins home and offices.  The home was long ago removed.  The site has been preserved with a metal frame that gives the bare outline of what once stood.  On the floor are quotes form letters and documents of the Franklin family.

Across a square are both the first American Post Office and Franklins printing house.

Very cool stuff but NY beckons.

Postcards from the Journey - Day Five

From the beginning Gettysburg was a destination on this trip.  When we discussed and planned it five years ago - Gettysburg was a part of the plan.

So I absolutely hate to say that I'm a little disappointed.

Disappointed?  How can anyone be disappointed with what has been done to preserve the memory of this battle and the men who fought there?  It is all magnificent.  The monuments and statues alone - which are indescribably beautiful - are worth a fortune.  The work that has gone into developing the route which outlines the battle almost moment by moment over the three days it was fought has been painstaking.  The collected stories would fill a complete volume.


I think I was disappointed because it was all a little too slick.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Arriving at Gettysburg requires about a half hour trip off the main roads.  I like that.  You have to want to go.  And the morning we went there were a lot of people wanting to go.  The place was packed.  Busloads of senior citizens and other busloads of high school and junior high schoolers were everywhere. 

At the visitors center we discovered that there are a number of ways to tour Gettysburg.  You can just drive through following a car route and stop to read every marker and monument - there are several thousand of them.  You can buy an audio CD that will guide you through the tour - we were offered a choice of three: the bare bones version that is a simplified version for someone that doesn't have a lot of time, a good version that uses the script taught to the official tourguides, and one with a hollywood actor giving a dramatic spin to the story of the battle with sound effects and music.  You can take a bus tour that will stop at all the important stops.  Or, you can hire a tour guide to take your group through the tour.

Being enamored with all things hollywood, hating bus fumes, and cheap as they come I chose the dramatic CD.  Big mistake.  The production quality and storytelling was superb - I heard about brave dogs and cowardly generals, stories of tragedy and stories of bravery, and no less than three key moments that could have turned the outcome of the battle.  The three CDs are well worth the money. 

But this place does not need them.  It deserves a quiet respectful viewing.

Pamela wanted to start with the graveyard, but that's not the way the tour starts so we followed the tour route.  Big mistake.

If I had it to do over again I'd take Pam's advise and start with the graveyard.  Get in touch with the solemnity of the place, then I'd visit the observation towers to get a lay of the land to see how the terrain managed the battle, and I'd close with a prayer that this type of destruction will not visit us again.

Postcards fromthe Journey- Day Four

Travel Day.  Travel Day.
Haven't got much that we need to say.

So here's the progression so far:
Houston to Winona, MS
Winona to Franklin, TN
Franklin to Knoxville, TN
Knoxville to Winchester, VA

Tomorrow Gettysburg.

Postcards from the Trip - Day Three - Pam

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An explanation to everyone that has been following this.  Blogspot went down for about a day and lost Pam's entire Day 3.  Pam was devastated, as she had worked for several painstaking hours the night before in a medium that is new to her in order to share what, for her, has been the most profound experience of the trip so far.  What she had written was beautiful and heartlfelt.  Here is the best we could do to pick up the pieces and move on:

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I'm feeling a bit confused this morning.  It might be the time change - we entered the Eastern Time Zone just before Knoxville, TN - but even as we're about to turn up the Blue Ridge Parkway, heading in a different direction, I feel the direction of the trip changing.  Not in a bad way, maybe it's even South to North - a different "feel" - just as good, but better.

So why the confusion?!  Mike qualified it yesterday, in the car on the way to Knoxville he said, "I'm exhausted, but not physically. I feel emotionally exhausted." And well we should.  We'd just heard about one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War - in Franklin, TN.

The Franklin Battle was considered to be the worst one of the Civil War, and pretty much the determining factor in the war's end, as well as one of it's greatest military blunders. Long story short. The Union and Confederate troops were trying to beat each other up to the state capital of Nashville, the Union to join forces with the rest of their troops who'd already taken the capital, the Confederacy to overtake and reclaim it as their own.  But, spring flooding had washed out one of the two bridges and the Union army could not get their equipment across the remaining one, the narrow railroad bridge. Basically, there was a huge traffic jam, and an unplanned, disastrous battle was the result.

One of the worst battles was fought on the front lawn of the Carter House (pictured below).  You can still see the trench dug by the Union army to the left of where Derek, our tour guide, stands.

As the Carter family emerged from their hiding place in the cellar below, their eyes met with the brutal devastation and loss of life - 57 bodies strewn across their front lawn, as well as a massacre across the entire area as far as the eye could see.

On the other side of town lived John and Carrie McGavock, owners of the Carnton Plantation.  Shortly, before the battle, Carrie was asked by a chaplain friend if they could use the house as a hospital.  She readily agreed and the house quickly filled to the brim.  The family was relegated to the only room left in the house, assumed to have been the kitchen. 

John and Carrie were not perfect, but what a sacrifice they made in turning their home into a hospital to nurse the barely living back to life. Carrie used everything from linens to tablecloths, even the bottom of her own dress, to bandage the wounds of the nearly 300 soldiers under her care.  Consequently, she became known as, "The Good Samaritan of the South."

Pam under the tree in Carrie's garden

 where overflow surgery was performed.

 

Mike standing on the porch where 4 dead generals

 were laid in honor before burial.

The McGavocks also portioned out a large part of their own family cemetary to bury the approximately 1,500 soldiers who died there, and Carrie kept pristine records on those interred from that time until the time of her death at the age of 80

No one really knows what spirited Carrie on. Perhaps it was the death of 3 of her 5 children early on, perhaps simply the heart of compassion and kindness in an area of great need. Perhaps it was her own call from the Divine.   Whatever the reason, the entire area bears a peace that transcends all human understanding for what happened there.

I'd often just thought of the Confederacy as stubborn, rebellious, and wrong, but as I walked through the house and grounds of the Carnton Plantation, and especially after reading the book which inspired this journey, the "Widow of the South" - I've gained a new appreciation for these farmers and landowners who were simply protecting their own.  As our tour guide, Derek, so eloquently stated, "who was right or wrong in this did not matter. These were brave men who were willing to lay down their lives for what they believed in and for the survival of their families."

After the Civil War ended, Union soldiers received pensions and aid from the Federal government, but they also dealt with the usual war traumas, coupled with the weight of having fought their own, including sometimes their own families.

Confederate soldiers, on the other hand, had to depend on their own States for pension and aid.  Their own post-war trauma included rebuilding their lives, the agony of defeat, and the difficulty of rejoining The Union.

With the need to talk about and heal their experiences, the first Veteran groups were formed, one for the blue and one for the gray.  Eventually, the two sides merged, and this famous quote was born::

"Whether blue or gray it makes no difference to us; we are friends and brothers now."

Let us not soon forget...

Postcards from the Journey - Day Two

Our second day of this amazing trip might be called lost in history.

We awoke in Winona, MS and headed north to Memphis, TN.  We joked about stopping at Graceland, but will leave that pilgrimage for another time.  We began to see signs that I-40 was closed due to the flooding.  We stopped at the visitor center at the Tennessee border and were told that it was the road west to Little Rock that was closed.  We were headed east to Nashville and the road was open - thank you Lord!  And please protect the people around the river.  Let the flood waters recede and the damage be minimal or nonexistent.

The visitor center had a very poignant commemorative plaque and sculpture honoring veterans.

As we drove through the beautiful corridor I-40 creates enjoying the lush green, Pam suddenly remembered that we were getting close to the burial site of Meriwether Lewis - of Lewis and Clark fame.  She had read a great book about their mission and the life of Lewis and really wanted to visit the place he is buried.

Pam called her sister Eileen who looked the site up on the internet and was able to give us the global position points which we fed into the GPS.  Up came the "Meriwether Lewis National Monument!"  The place was only about an hour out of the way so we decided to go for it.

One of the things that seemed a little odd is that we didn't find any road signs for the place along the way.  There were signs for Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch, and not just billboards, official looking directional markers, but nothing that would lead a visitor to the monument of this American hero.

If that doesn't say something about America today I'm not sure what will.

The monument is located in a state park along the old Natchez Trace Highway that includes the restored structure of the inn in which he died and a memorial monument a few hundred feet away.  History records that Lewis committed suicide, but many have long doubted the accuracy of that assessment.

The grounds of the inn are under repair, but the place was still beautiful.  The only sound was the wind using the leaves like a million tiny tongues, and the calls of the birds.

Meriwether, the deeds of even great men fade into memory and shadow.  Thank you for the sacrifices you and your men endured to open the great expanse that is America.

Postcards from the Journey - Day One

Guess where we be?!

Five years after we orinally planned our anniversary trip to New York, we're finally on our way. 

Our first stop was at our favorite resturant in Baton Roge, "Boutin's" (pronounced BOO-TAN).  Pam and I first found this place several years ago when we were on a trip to Atlanta.  On that trip we pulled in late to Red Stick, weary to the bone and hungry enough to eat a horse.  We found a cheap motel and asked the guy at the front desk if he could recommend somewhere to eat.  He directed us to a place he said was "fun."

When we got there I wasn't too sure.  A Zydeco band was playing to a packed house of dancing, singing, and eating Cajuns.  But at a Cajun party everyone is welcome and there is always room for one more.  The hostess found us a table on the porch, which wasn't far from the dance floor.  The mood was infectious, the music was infectious, the fun was infectious.  Pam ordered the boiled crawfish and when they came a colorful local gave us a lesson on the proper way to suck a little tail.

It was an evening we will never forget,and because of that we always try to stop at Boutin's if we are traveling this way.  It's always been good, but we haven't seen a crowd like that first evening.

Today we arrived at 2:00 PM on Mother's Day, and the place was jumping.  No band, but the Zydeco was pumped in through the sound system.  Huge tables of families were everywhere.  And the little kids were jumping and dancing all over the stage and dance floor.

It was almost as much fun as our first experience of Boutin's. 

 

For those of you from New Mexico, it reminds us of our old friend, The Golden Inn.  Just replace the bikers with Cajuns.  What do you think?!

Pam caught this little guy off the restaurant's back porch.  I think we'll pass if tomorrow's soup du jour is turtle soup!