Terror at Gettysburg

Since our recent move to beautiful Southern Pennsylvania, one of  our favorite places to visit has become the historical town of Gettysburg. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is the site where one of America's bloodiest civil war battles was waged.  Back in 1863, under a hot July sun, opposing Generals Meade and Lee led a fierce three day battle, ending the lives of over 50,000 union and confederate soldiers.

Today, the town of Gettysburg looks very similar to the way it appeared during the days of its infamous battle, with the possible exception of the hundreds of monuments that now dot the landscape.  Reenactment soldiers in full dress uniform can be seen strolling down the streets, kissing the hands of hoop-skirted, bonneted ladies.  Battlefield tours, taken by bus, car, and even horses are available at all hours throughout the day.

So one weekend Alan and I decided to rent a small, scary, crappy cabin (that's a WHOLE story for another day, my friends!  I'll give you a hint:  it involved a VERY close proximity to horse stalls!) at a nearby campground and ride our bikes through the monuments and memorials of the battlefield.  We had a great day riding up and down the hills, imagining what those three days must have been like for the soldiers and that tiny town of witnesses.

Famished after a long day of pedaling, we finally stopped, chained our bikes to a street sign and looked for a good spot to have dinner.  We found exactly what we were looking for when we entered an old tavern, originally built long before the civil war in the 1700's.  We had a fantastic dinner that included roasted chicken, potatoes and a draft or two, and finally decided to head back to our "luxurious" cabin and call it a night.

As we stepped outside, two things immediately entered my chicken and beer-soaked brain:  #1.  It had gotten very dark outside, and #2.  The battlefield that we had to cross to get back to the campground was not lit. At all.  Numbers three and four soon followed:  #3. Gettysburg has been called the "Most Haunted Place in America" by all those Ghost Hunter-ey guys, and #4. The spirits are said to appear at night when it is quiet and DARK!!

Alan, ever the cool head, said he had a "pretty good" idea of how to get back and to just follow him.  This would have been really easy if, in fact, either one of us had possessed the BRAIN CELLS required to have had the forethought to attach a LIGHT of some kind on our bikes.  Sadly, we did not!

We were literally pedaling in complete blackness.  I could barely make out Alan's shape in front of me as we rode, so I kept yelling, "Say something, so I can follow your voice!"  Every once in a while, the moon would pick up a figure of one of the monuments.  You know, just a statue of a union soldier raising a saber or General Lee astride an enormous stallion, terrifying stuff like that!

I began to pray.  Out loud.  Loudly!  God apparently heard my frightened pleas and showed mercy on His poor, stupid children. We arrived safely back at our cabin in one piece (looking back, it may have been the smell of horse dung that guided us home!).  We jumped off our bikes and kissed the nasty, ant infested porch of our glorious, humble abode!

Looking back to that evening, I can't seem to shake this mental picture in my head of a possible batallion of ghost soldiers marching along on the battlefield that night.  I wonder if they watched in awe as a couple of complete morons pedaled by in the pitch black night.  I imagine them being entirely too confused by the stupidity of the riders to commence with the "appearing in the mist," or other haunting activity.  I imagine the ghost colonel holding up a hand, halting his men and proclaiming, "No, let's not.  These idiots clearly have enough problems as it is!"

This idiot, for one, is eternally grateful!

Thanks for Reading!!