Grate Day and Happy Planning!!!!!

The Bronchitis is gone... the ear/sinus infection gone... I just am in the weaning stages of getting off Prednisone - and if anyone has ever taken it before, ughhhh, you can relate to it is one nasty thing to take steroids!!!!

AND.... that's where my Joyful News begins.  I am PLANNING A REAL VACATION!!!!!!!  FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!  Not going overseas... but, I'll take what I can get.

The Kid is turning 24 this Thanksgiving... so we are going to toss in a trip to New England to visit my mother, but ... we are also going to make it an American History Themed Road Trip.  

ANTIETAM - AMERICAN CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELD

Antietam Battlefield in Maryland - the site of America's bloodiest single-day battle, with more than 23,000 lives lost that day. Hundreds of visitors and locals have reported seeing soldiers in uniform, still on the field, seen wandering around as if lost, many hear the fire of cannons and guns, the sightings seem to be most prevalent at dawn and dusk.

Sunken Road - supposed to be extremely electrical feeling.... even today... like the aura has remained from this incredibly awful and bloody battle... and you can see why below:

Just dead soldiers left side by side in ditches, there were so many - and so many mass graves... all in the yards of farmers in the area - they say it is one of the most haunted battlefields, that people have claimed over the many years to see soldiers of both sides just walking through the fields - through the farm houses, and still as if in battle... so sad... 

GETTYSBURG - AMERICAN CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELD

1. The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863.
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Here's a famous civil war photo of Confederate Soldiers taken prisoner - that has been colorized... I love the way they colorize things today - gives you so much more reality than the black and whites and tin types...

I am now working on hotels, places we will sleep/stay when in these two places.  I believe we will hit Antietam, spend the day, then drive to Gettysburg and stay there at one of the old hotels.  The Gettysburg Hotel is one on my list, and still looking into others... but I want to stay in something with a lot of character and history - since that is what this trip is all about....

Stay tuned for more, if interested!  I certainly am, and I am certainly thrilled to be giving my son this incredible opportunity to visit sites of interest and we will have private guides through the Battlefields via the National Park Visitor centers... Can't wait!!!!!!  

FYI:  I had ancestors fight both sides of the war...so, I am not prone to choose a side... I just feel a great swell of sadness that they had to choose a side and fight such an ugly war... brother against brother...