Date: 2009-07-14
From: PA 16/Waynesboro

To: Caledonia State Park
Miles today: 15.3

We woke up in the morning at Brad¢s house and had a wonderful ¢continental¢ breakfast with Sam and Vickie. I was a bit sore from running on the trail the day before, but it was soon time to get back out there. After a few mishaps with Brad¢s car, we were on our way to the Gettysburg Battlefield - one of the most important battles in the history of our country. It was known to be the turning point of the Civil War, as the Confederate Army had won most battles up to that point. General Robert E. Lee knew that he couldn¢t compete with the industrial north and the sheer amount of men, so he wanted to try to invade the north and break the camel¢s back on their own turf and try to acquire a psychological blow to the north. As history points out, the Union Army won with General Gordon Meade of the Army of the Potomac leading. The two armies began to collide at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there. Low ridges to the northwest of town were defended initially by a Union cavalry division, which was soon reinforced with two corps of Union infantry. However, two large Confederate corps assaulted them from the northwest and north, collapsing the hastily developed Union lines, sending the defenders retreating through the streets of town to the hills just to the south.On the second day of battle, most of both armies had assembled. The Union line was laid out in a defensive formation resembling a fishhook. Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union left flank, and fierce fighting raged at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. On the Union right, demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. All across the battlefield, despite significant losses, the Union defenders held their lines.On the third day of battle, July 3, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south, but the main event was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,500 Confederates against the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Pickett's Charge was repulsed by Union rifle and artillery fire, at great losses to the Confederate army. Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia. Between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were casualties in the three-day battle. That November, President Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.It was incredible to be out there, walking all over these battlefields and seeing all of these monuments dedicated to the various battalions that fought and died out there. Brad is a bit of a history connoisseur, while Sam, his former mentor, used to be a history teacher for 40+ years. It was great company and they were able to make it very exciting. I¢m no war expert, but one thing that I¢ve learned about war is that there is an underlying principle of luck. You can have the best men and the best equipment and the best leadership, but you also need a bit of luck to get you through. Brad and Sam dropped Guernsey and I off at the trailhead, thereafter, and we were on our merry way again. I can¢t thank Brad and Vickie enough for hosting us for a day. It was quite a treat. We had heard that there was going to be some trail magic at Caledonia State Park - roughly 15 miles ahead. It was already 2 pm and we had to book it to get to the free food! I must say that although I have only been hiking with Guernsey for two days, we have gotten on very well. He is a huge Manchester United fan and he enjoys hitting the bottle, so our conversations mostly consist of one or the other. Obviously, from time to time we branch out to discuss other things: socialism in the UK (I.e. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair), marathon running (Guernsey is a big marathoner), the finance industry (he works for the Royal Bank of Canada in finance), and a host of other topics. But, we always find ourselves coming back talking about European football or having a pint. We somehow managed to get ourselves lost, after stopping at a playground and watching some young kids play kickball for a while. We were about .25 miles off the trail chatting away without ever knowing that we weren¢t following the white blazes. Up ahead, just at the Antietam Shelter, a man was returning from the shelter with a watering can, telling us that he had just planted some flowers. He also offered us a soda and some fruit, which was all lovely considering the humidity through which we were walking. The flowers at the shelter looked beautiful. We pushed on and met up with Gnarley, who was still hiking in his pink Crocs. We chatted for a while and then the others jumped ahead, while I had to get some food in me and change my shorts/shirt due to excessive sweating. At US 30, Guernsey and I found a small cooler with snacks in it and a map letting us know where to go to get free food. We both changed the conversation to various cartoon shows we used to watch back in the day and how we merely had to close our eyes, tilt our heads upwards, and let the smell lift our bodies off the ground and take us to the food. Unfortunately, this did not happen, but we were able to find our way to the campgrounds. So many thru-hikers were there, many of whom I had never met. It was great to see the triumvirate of Jungli, Willow, and Phoenix Rising. They are just too much fun. It was getting dark and we had missed the main course of the meal, but there was still some pasta and some beans and ham, which we devoured - forgetting the fact that we would have some serious flagellation the following day. I knew that it was not going to rain, so I set up my sleeping bag and pad out in the open (saves time and energy). The campsite was incredibly hilly and I had to set my belongings up on a 30-degree slanted hill, thereby causing me to roll down the hill a good few feet as I was sleeping. The food is another example - probably the best example of trail magic. Several church members from Indianapolis drove all the way out to Pennsylvania to offer some ¢magic¢ to we thru-hikers doing the Appalachian Trail. There are no costs, no gimmicks. It was truly just out of the goodness of their own hearts and it was very much appreciated. They were incredibly accommodating; even as we had arrived past dark, they still managed to whip something together and provide us with a warm meal. While I was grubbing, a young girl came up to me and started chatting. Somewhere in the conversation, I told her that I had done some work in Costa Rica and, as she had studied there, she immediately jumped into a Spanish conversation. I was a bit timid at first, as I rarely speak Spanish anymore, but I was able to flow quite freely after a good ten minutes. She just graduated from college, but her Spanish was very strong. For the next hour, we all gathered around this beautiful fire pit, allowing the flames to warm our cold bodies. Brrrrrr! The temperature had been dropping into the mid-40¢s - in July! Effects of global warming? One may never know¢¦