My Birthday and seeing Gettysburg

Turning 50 wasn't hard it's only a measurement of time, being a mile stone Birthday and the first one my Mom and I wouldn't be chatting for hours on the phone about everything, mostly about Birthday's hers and her  Mom's, and the ones from when we were kids with all the cousin's most of us kids were born in either November and or around May, so we had a big party each summer, because I was so young don't remember much, seeing the pictures with all of us kids in the back yard of "2932" sharing  her memories of the many party's in the backyard, and telling me her reason why at forty five she colored her hair gray. What she told everyone was a woman should have their hair colored at least once! Her other reason for wanting it done was  because her Mom passed away before she had one gray hair and she thought her Mom would have looked good with gray hair. How we laughed at how gray her hair had getting over the years, with only a very few dark ones left and so much gray hair. Back when I took her to get her hair she told the hairdresser "I told them to only cut the grays one. She had always called my brothers and I on our birthday's to sing happy birthday to us. For the last few years of her life I would let the answering machine take that call and wait to pickup until after she was done singing so I could listen to it over again. Knowing soon a birthday was coming when I wouldn't receive a call from her. This being the first mile stone birthday I didn't want to be home waiting for a call, I knew wouldn't come. 


We started planning this visit to Jane's sister Char shorty after we got back from Florida last year  got the plane tickets in January. Long before we went to Las Vegas thankfully not everything stays in Vegas so what we came home with became the spending money for this trip. Most of it was spent at the gift shop at Gettysburg, the money spent there goes to help with the up keep of Gettysburg so we got some cool stuff and helped keep Gettysburg the way it is. 

Gettysburg 

Having only seen it in painting's in both the north and south some had more blue or gray depending on what side of the line it was on. Seeing it in person was amazing the battle field is much bigger then any painting showed. Having serviced in the Army knowing and learning about this battle, it was nice seeing it as a peaceful resting place for so many from both sides.    

Devils den 

The battle field is so big! Learned during the battle, people would go out and have a picnic lunch and watch the battle. Some of the monuments in this photo are up to ten miles away. Knowing this place through it's history is something. After seeing it and the pain it caused to both sides and as a nation. That as a people we are still having trouble with the equality issue, maybe it's the wording of it or that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Corporation has the same rights as a person. What is it that makes it's okay to withhold rights to any person or group of people. 

Loved the view from here, 

I could just see the Mountain's

in all but one of the photo's

from Gettysburg 

The trip has help reinforced what I believe.

There are somethings worth dying for,

but few are worth killing for.

It's a trip I'll never forget.