Over the July 4th holiday week, my parents, Jeremy, Carter and I went to the 150th Gettysburg reenactment. This trip had been a long time in the making. We had to book our hotel about a year in advance because there was so much demand. My parents and I drove down on Wednesday morning and we spent the evening in downtown Gettysburg. We looked in some of the shops and got Mr. G's icecream, which was AMAZING. they had free shuttles going all over Gettysburg. On the way back to the hotel, we were sitting by a big, slightly scary looking man with a long beard. Carter was sitting on my lap and managed to give the man's beard a good yank and couple of times. Luckily the man thought that this was hilarious. Jeremy drove down later that evening. Carter was happy to see his daddy.
On Thursday we drove out to the battlefield. We went on a couple of ranger tours, one about the daily life of a soldier, and one about the prisoners of war. At the second tour, we ran into my friends Grant and Jill Ensign from my London study abroad program. It was so random and fun to see them.
On Friday, we went to the first day of the reenactment. In the morning, they reenacted a cavalry battle. It was pretty amazing to see all the horses. The dedication of all of the reenactors is incredible to me. I cannot imagine how hot they must have been in their wool uniforms. I think there were close to 13,000 reenactors there this year.
Carter actually did really well with the guns firing during the battle. He just got a little bit worried when everyone yelled "huzzah" at the end of the battle.
After the battle, we went to a couple of presentations. We went to one by Jeff Shaara and Jeremy was able to get an autographed book. My mom and I went to a presentation on Civil War fashion and the ghosts of Gettysburg. Carter enjoyed the fashion presentation as well!
After the presentations, we went to the generals' tents. It's interesting, they only have one General Lee, General Longstreet, etc. It was pretty funny watching Jeremy and my dad at the generals' tents. It was like watching a kid at Disneyland trying to get pictures with all of their favorite characters. Here we all are with General Pickett.
After meeting the generals, Carter was about done for the day.
I was so proud of him, it was SO HOT and he was such a good boy. My mom and I left to put Carter to bed and swung by Gettysburg Cupcake Cafe on the way home (their cookie dough cupcake is probably the best cupcake I have ever eaten in my life).Here are a couple of pictures that Jer took of the second battle.
That night, when Jeremy and my dad got back, we didn't want to leave Carter in the hotel room without someone watching the door, so we camped out in the hallway for dinner and had a feast of Chinese food, Wendy's, and cupcakes. I love the look of pure joy on my mom's face in this picture, haha.
The next day we went to a couple more battles and saw presentations on spies during the civil war and on civilian life during the war. Jeremy was also able to meet up with a man that he works with in the reenactor's camp. Even with heat, we had such a great time. I can't think of a better way to spend the fourth of July.
