Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Day 1:

We got in late (1:30 a.m.) Friday night. So on Saturday, we slept in then ventured into town for an early lunch. We drove around the town of Gettysburg trying to find a place to eat, and couldn't find parking for any of the restaurants we drove by (helpful tip -- we later learned that there's a lot of parking behind most of the businesses in the alley). We ended up at the Dobbin House, and this will probably be one of my favorite vacation restaurants for a very long time.

Outside of the Dobbin House

Lunch at the Dobbin House- This place has a ton of history. The restaurant is downstairs (like in a basement), and it looks the same as it did 200 years ago. The building used to hold runaway slaves, and is said to be haunted (like most buildings with history in the town).

You eat by candlelight, just like back in the day

Battleground Tour with a Licensed Professional Battleguide- I had heard that the best way to see the battlefield was to hire a licensed battlefield guide, which you need to reserve at least 3 days in advance (of course I learned this two days before we left for Gettysburg). We were purchasing tickets for the museum and I decided to ask about the guides, in case they'd had any cancellations. Somehow got very lucky because there was a guide available that day! It worked out perfectly.

Our guide was knowledgeable (seriously, I could probably study the Civil War for the rest of my life and not be able to explain everything the way he did), thorough, and professional. Many recommend seeing the museum before the tour, but I think either way you appreciate it all. The tour made me appreciate the museum more, but had we done the museum first, we'd have appreciated the tour more - I don't think there is really a wrong way to do it, they really compliment each other well. The guides drive your car (if you let them) so that you can look around you while they explain what happened, and they let you get out whenever you want to. I really do not like letting other people drive my car, but I was never nervous with the guide driving it, so that's a huge plus!

There are monuments throughout the battleground, and our guide explained to us that they were placed there by the units which occupied that space during the war. In fact, the monuments were only allowed to be placed where a unit was stationed. We didn't stop to read every single monument (that would literally take days I think) but it was very humbling to see them all.

Dinner at O'Rourke's - Convenient location right in town. They served your typical bar food.

Ghost Tour- I had been on a ghost tour in Key West with my friends, and we liked it so much that we went back two separate times while we were there. So while in Gettysburg, I was really excited to hear stories, and maybe see some creepy stuff, especially because Mitchell doesn't believe in ghosts. Unfortunately, we didn't have a good experience. Our guide was very cheesy and hard to take seriously; we weren't impressed. If you go to Gettysburg, I'd still recommend a ghost tour; I'm hoping our experience was just a fluke since all of the ghost tour companies in Gettysburg have great ratings. Although Mitchell did mention he believes in ghosts even less now than before ;)

One of our stops from the ghost tour - I won't ruin it for you by telling the story :)

Day 2:

Visitor's Center - We headed here to check out the museum. Most recommendations say to plan on spending about 2 hours at the museum, but I think we got out in about 1. We don't necessarily read every detail, so if your'e more detailed and want to read it all, it will take closer to 2 hours.

Soldier's National Cemetery-This is where the Union soldiers were buried, and also the location of Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address. I already talked about this place here, so I won't get into it too much. Just know it's a must-see.

Statue commemorating Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Lunch at Eddie's - Also right in town in Gettysburg. Good food, and good service.

After lunch, it was about 3:00. We weren't sure what to do with the rest of our day, and considered a number of different options - there was Sachs covered bridge, Jennie Wade's house, or we could drive through the battlefields again to make more stops that we didn't with our tour guide. We then decided it would be cool to go to Crystal Grottoes Caverns about an hour away. We decided to go even though they would be closing an hour after we got there, but on our way we passed a lot of hotels with pools and people enjoying the nice weather.. So we ended up being lazy and going back to our hotel's pool instead ;) At the time, I also didn't know that Hershey, Pennsylvania was approximately 1 hour away; I'm disappointed in myself for not knowing this, because that would have been another neat place to visit!

Jennie Wade House Fun fact: After telling our tour guide that we were from Iowa, he let us know that after Jennie Wade (the only civilian to killed in Gettysburg) died, her sister moved to Iowa and became president of the Iowa Woman's Relief Corps. This is where the money was raised for Jennie's monument in the cemetery. Jennie's house is said to be haunted, and that if you put your ring finger through the bullet hole in the door that you will be engaged within the next year.. So now really I wish we would have made time to go inside and tour it ;)

Little Round Top- We had already been here on our tour; it is a hill where the Confederates tried to take over the Union (they were unsuccessful). It is a beautiful hill during the day, and our tour guide recommended we return to watch the sunset, and I'm so happy we did.

Visible from Little Round Top is Devil's Den. This is where the Confederate snipers shot many people by hiding in/around the large rocks where they couldn't be seen. Following the battle, a photographer came and moved bodies around in order to get the best possible picture; it is said that because of this, Devil's Den is haunted. We had planned on checking it out at dusk, when it is said to be the "most haunted" but it was still pretty crowded at that time, so we skipped it.

Devil's Den (Not the best picture, it was very crowded)

There was a little bar I heard of that is underground and designed to have a "coal miners" feel. We were really excited to check it out only to be disappointed that it was closed. But if you get a chance, I'd love to hear more about it!

That little tiny door is the bar!

Where to Stay:
There are several hotels in Gettysburg within walking distance to almost everything. Unfortunately, those hotels were mostly booked. We stayed about 4 miles away at Aspire. I would highly recommend this place - the hotel rooms were the biggest standard rooms I have ever seen.

How Long to Stay: 

There is a lot to do and see in Gettysburg and we had 2 full days to do and see it all. Many people recommend longer, but 2 days was enough for us. You would really only need more if it is important to you to read every single monument in the battlefield.

Memorial Day in Gettysburg

For some things, there are no words.. It's safe to say that working on a military base has made me more sensitive to Memorial Day and all that it stands for since I'm reminded constantly of the sacrifices that are made in order for us to live the lives that we all are accustomed to. For example, I see this memorial at our main gate every morning on my way to work:

Gettysburg was beyond humbling. We heard about the 51,000 who died in the battle of Gettysburg over and over again between the tour we took and the museum. We tried to imagine what that would look like, astonished that so many lives could be taken so suddenly. But the gravity of 51,000 people didn't really hit me until we went to the Soldier's National Cemetery, where you couldn't see the end of the graves.

All over the Gettysburg National Military Park are statues such as these. In most cases, the units designed the statues themselves to serve as a kind of marker indicating where they were stationed during the battle, but they also served as a memorial to their brothers who didn't make it.

This Memorial Day was unlike any other. I am grateful, more than ever, for all those who selflessly paid the ultimate price.

"The muffled drums sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo.

No more on life's parade shall meet

That brave and fallen few."

The Start of Summer!

I have been told by everyone who has lived here longer than a year that there is no such thing as a "perfect day" because of crazy weather and humidity. Well, mother nature proved them wrong two days in a row this past weekend when we had a Saturday AND a Sunday in the 80's with almost no humidity.

 

Mitchell and I took advantage of the weather by buying boogie boards, and headed to the beach. The difference at the beach was incredible compared to every other time we have gone. Obviously, last weekend we had Tropical Storm Ana, but even every weekend before that, we were pretty much the only people on the beach. Definitely not the case this weekend:

 
We took our boogie boards out, and Mitchell showed me the ropes since it was my first time. I had so much fun, and I could have stayed out there forever. Do you see the difference now between a "normal" day and Tropical Storm Ana? (Minus my crappy photog skills from this weekend, since I was just so excited to jump in the water)

 

 

This weekend was what I expected out of North Carolina when we moved here. Although I'm going to miss having the beach to myself, it is much more fun when it's nice enough to enjoy!
 

This coming weekend, we were going to check out the Outer Banks, but we procrastinated too long for a good hotel room. So intead, we are headed to Gettysburg! We are so excited. Mitchell has been working 6 day weeks, so a 3 day weekend feels like a big vacation to us now!

 

 

I will leave you with this not-so-flattering picture from our time at the beach. I think it's time we invest in a selfie stick ;)

 

Tropical Storm Ana

I was really looking forward to experiencing my first (real) tropical storm. We got word at work last Wednesday that there was a "coastal low" that may impact us throughout the weekend. I had no idea what that meant, but to my excitement, that "coastal low" turned into Tropical Storm Ana. 

Friday after work, a co-worker and I went to the beach to see whether or not things were getting started. The ocean had rougher seas, but nothing crazy. And, unfortunately, I don't think the pictures show much difference. 

 

While in Japan, I was able to experience a tropical depression, but that pretty much just meant it rained all day long. Turns out Tropical Storm Ana did pretty much the same thing, except in a much more annoying way. Instead of raining all day long, it would rain really hard for about 5 seconds, then quit.. Once it quit, I would wait for it to start raining again since my weather app assured me it would be raining all day non-stop. After about an hour of no rain, I would try to go outside, thinking maybe it was done for a while, and, alas, it would downpour. This was my routine for about 8 hours on Saturday.

 

By Sunday, we were pros and knew better. We ventured out to the beach, and I am thankful for the opportunity to have taken these pictures, because we only had about 5 minutes in between downpours. There was almost no beach to walk on - the water was right up to the sand dunes. This is one of my favorite pictures because, using Mitchell as a comparison, I think it really captures how rough the seas were, and serves as a reminder how small we are compared to the ocean.

 

Although Tropical Storm Ana was kind of a disappointment, I'm happy no damage was done, and that no one was injured. Especially after seeing the damage of the tornado in Iowa Sunday night. I have heard, though, that this is likely to make for an active hurricane season - since this stuff isn't supposed to start until June 1.. We shall see.

It has been a long time since I have updated, not because I've been lazy, but mostly because we haven't had a chance to explore as much lately. But that has now changed a little bit :)

 

About a month ago, Mitchell and his friends that were visiting us went to Myrtle Beach for the night. I met up with Mitchell there the next day (Saturday) and we spent the rest of our weekend there. I didn't make a whole blog post about it because both mine and Mitchell's phones were dead most of the time, and this is the only picture I have from the whole weekend:

 

 

Myrtle Beach was a lot different from what we are used to here - it's relatively quiet here, but that is not the case in Myrtle Beach - lots of tall buildings, and people everywhere - don't get me started on the traffic ;) .  We were slightly overwhelmed and didn't really know what to do with our time.. most of the things they have to do there consists of touristy stuff that we've done before (swimming with dolphins, Ripley's museum, ect) and it was still too cold to get in ocean. The weekend we were there was the same weekend they were hosting North Carolina's largest car show, so that could have been why it was so busy. 

We found ourselves wandering around Broadway at the Beach - a cool area with a lot of attractions, shops, and dining. In my opinion, we went to Myrtle Beach during a nice time because it was warm enough outside to walk around, yet cold enough that the tourists weren't pouring in so it wasn't too crowded. We ended up going to WonderWorks - you may have heard of it before because apparently it is a chain and there are a few of them out there, but we'd never heard of it and it was a really cool place where we ended up spending most of our day. The best way to describe it is kind of like a science museum, but much larger with more to do.. laying on a bed of nails, virtual/3D simulators, riding a bike in a complete circle, ect. They also had a ropes course where you are harnessed and walk around on little planks in the ceiling - terrifyingly fun! I also played lazer tag for the first time (and beat Mitchell!) Going to WonderWorks was all we really had time for, but we were probably too exhausted for anything else anyways. We freshened up at our hotel (another plus about Myrtle in the off-season is that you can get ocean front hotels for around $60) then went out to dinner, sat in the hot tub, and called it a day.

 

Last weekend we decided to take a road trip to the mountains about 6 hours away. We stayed in a small town next to Cherokee right in the mountains on Saturday night. Gambling is illegal in North Carolina, but they do have a Harrah's casino in Cherokee because it is an Indian reservation. The drive from our hotel to Cherokee was about 20 minutes, but I spent most of it with my eyes closed. It was right in the mountains with lots of steep drop offs and tight, windy curves. 

Long car rides aren't bad with views like this!

This is the view from our [very cheap] hotel. It was stunning.

This was taken less than a mile from the hotel we stayed at

We decided to check out Asheville on our way home on Sunday. If you google North Carolina, you're going to find a lot of people recommend Asheville, I've read a lot about it so I was eager to check it out. We were less than impressed, it was not our style at all (very "hippie"). In Asheville's defense, there are a lot of neat hikes/scenic things to check out (parts of The Hunger Games were filmed there) and we didn't see those particular places. Another strange thing was that the restaurant we ate at for lunch had RC on tap - I have never seen that before. In all honesty, I was somewhat relieved to find Asheville unappealing because there is a lot to do in there, and had we fallen in love with it, we'd have to go back to make sure to check those things off our list - now we don't have to worry about it ;) Although I would go back to Cherokee anytime for a relaxing weekend getaway. 

 

We have some more exciting trips planned that I'm really looking forward to. My birthday will be spent at the Outer Banks, a long strip of islands about 3 hours north of here. One part of the Outer Banks has horses running wild on the beach, and Roadanthe is also in the Outer Banks (as in Nicolas' Sparks' book). Then we will be spending the 4th of July in Washington DC! 

For the last week, we have had three of Mitchell’s friends visiting from Iowa. Since there’s nothing to do in Jacksonville (I know I sound like a broken record whenever I say that), we took them to Wilmington last weekend.

Before checking into our hotel in Wilmington, we stopped to get some southern BBQ (new for all of us), which is different from the BBQ we are used to in Iowa. Southern BBQ has a vinegar base, and it seemed like I couldn’t taste it no matter how much I put on my sandwich (which was still delicious, obviously). They also put coleslaw on their BBQ sandwiches, another first for me. Another thing that we have noticed is that the side dishes (called “vegetables” no matter what the side dish is) are different here – collard greens, tomatoes and cucumber, lima beans, fried okra, ect. Nothing too weird, but different from your standard fries and coleslaw ;)

We really wanted to explore Wilmington on Saturday, but it rained all day long. We tried to wait it out in our hotel but with no end of rain in sight, we finally ventured out to watch the Iowa State game at Front Street Brewery - their nachos are the best I've ever had ;). Our hotel was perfect. It was right on the boardwalk with a nice view of the river and of the USS North Carolina battleship. One of the outside walls of our hotel had a dolphin mural painted on it, by the famous marine life artist, Wyland (you can see some of his work here - I had heard of him because there is a famous wall in Key West that he has also done, so that was pretty cool!). But the best part of our hotel is that we  were able to walk everywhere we needed to in downtown Wilmington without having to worry about finding/paying for parking or worrying about finding a taxi to get home at the end of the night.

Rainy view of the river and the USS North Carolina from our hotel. Our view of the ship was much cooler than it looks in this picture.

I have talked about how beautiful downtown Wilmington is, but it is a whole different world at night. We were there for Saint Patrick’s Day weekend, and there were people everywhere. Lots of different bars to go to, lots of interesting people (think discharged Air Force service member full of conspiracy theories), and lots of fun. Unfortunately, I don’t have very many of pictures, so I’ll just leave you with this…..

(How lucky was I to be the only girl with these handsome boys?)

We woke up on Sunday to a beautiful day, and got to do a lot of the things we had originally wanted to do on Saturday. We walked along the river walk (I will never get sick of this), went on a waterboat tour of the river, and checked out the USS North Carolina. Wilmington is such a beautiful place, and I am so in love. It is growing quickly, and I’m sure it will look a lot different by the time we move.

Ship Selfie 

Pictures don't do this thing justice. It was enormous. 

The ship also gave nice views of downtown Wilmington

After our productive weekend in Wilmington, work on Monday greeted me with my first presentation, and I cannot express  how happy I am that that is over!  Luckily, it is  Friday again and the boys have left for Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. I’ll be headed down to meet them tomorrow, then they'll be headed back to Iowa. It was such a good week, and was nice to have some familiar faces in town.. although I must admit it took me a four-hour nap today to recuperate ;)

Positive things

It really is hard to believe we have been here over a month now. I think it is safe to say that we are finally feeling pretty settled. This post is a little lengthy, so I'm sorry for that ;) 

Mitchell got a job! He will be working for a computer company out of Wilmington that is expanding their business to Jacksonville. It sounds like it’s going to be a really great fit for him. I’m a pretty proud girlfriend – the first interview was a group interview, and there were almost 20 other candidates, some of them with quite a bit of experience and degrees. He starts tomorrow already, and once they get settled with the new business, he’ll be working four 10 hour days. I get a lot of vacation, so we are hoping for a lot of 3-day weekends to travel.. There is a lot to see within a 5-hour radius of Jacksonville, and we can't wait to get out and explore more. Especially after our weekend in Wilmington.

Our typical weekend routine has been to head to the beach, and check out new restaurants (by the time we leave Jacksonville, I still don’t think we will have tried them all ;) ). We decided on Saturday morning to go to Wilmington. Everyone has told us to check it out, and we have been meaning to, but we really took our time getting settled. I don’t know what we were waiting for – it is only an hour away, and Wilmington did not disappoint!

We rolled up to Wilmington around 1 in the afternoon, and we were starving. After a coin toss, we ended up at Fat Tony’s Italian Pub (Mitchell’s choice). It was a little Italian restaurant right on the river. I’m so happy Mitchell’s choice won, because the pizza was soo good! Des Moines people – it definitely gave Fong’s a run for their money!

This is our buffalo chicken ranch pizza. Sorry for the awful picture, but we were way too excited to dig in to take pictures while it was fresh and new ;)  

After eating, we walked around the town, then along the river. This is one of the top recommended things to do there, and even though it was very cold, it was beautiful. Wilmington is also home to the Battleship North Carolina (a huge ship from World War II) – the walk along the river gives an amazing view of the ship. We both wanted to stay longer, but our parking was running low, so we’ll just have to come back and walk the riverside again. We both really want to tour the ship, too, and I’m sure there’s a lot more that we didn’t see!

For all of you One Tree Hill fans, a lot of the scenes are filmed in Wilmington! If you remember the episode where Brooke and Peyton crash a college party, the scene where Peyton is drugged is on the steps of the federal courthouse (although I think I cut out most of the steps in this picture): 

 There are a lot more spots from One Tree Hill that I am planning to check out, but that will involve some planning, and this trip was really more of a whim for us. One of the gift shops there had sweatshirts that were the same as Keith’s business shirts, which was pretty cool!

As we were leaving the downtown area (around 3 pm) the bars were starting to fill up pretty quickly. I wanted to stay so bad! This is another must do on our list one day. The atmosphere there is very cool, and I’m very much looking forward to being able to get a hotel room and bar hop. They also have a bar hop ghost tour which I am all about!

After walking around downtown, we decided to go to the mall since the one in Jacksonville is so tiny. We played some blacklight mini golf, and just don’t worry about who won ;) 

We left the mall as it was starting to get dark, and tried to make our way to the beach. We made it, but it was so cold that we were only there about 5 minutes despite being the only ones on the beach.

We had such a great weekend in Wilmington, and it was much needed because we have been missing everyone back home a lot! We hope you are all doing well, and we would love visitors! ;)