Today we went to sacrament meeting at a ward which meets by the temple. Then we traveled up to Pennsylvania to the national memorial at Gettysburg. We went out to the battlefields (there are several) and drove around the auto tour which took us to all the most important places and sites. Since I read a great book about Gettysburg (The Killer Angels), a few years ago, I have wanted to get to Gettysburg. It was so different than I had pictured. Many more trees and greenery. It was so beautiful and I thought what a terrible thing that happened to this samll community of Gettysburg back n 1863. They must have been finding bodies and burying them for months afterwards.
The picture above shows how thick the trees and brush are.
This is one of the monuments. Eventually, every regiment from the Union that fought at Gettysburg put up a monument. This is one of hundreds.
This pictures shows memorials and monuments. The memorials were for generals and the monuments were for regiments. Markers were put up for every regiment also to tell the story of the regiment's movements for the three day battle.
I was surprised to see beautiful homes out on the battlegrounds. There were many of these old lovely homes that surely must have been used to carefor wounded soldiers.
There were lots of cannons set around the park.
Josh at one of the observation towers. We could see all over the battlegrounds from this observation tower.
This picture is of a monument and cannons inside the Gettysburg cemetery for the soldiers. All the soldiers' bodies that they could find were gathered here and buried. It was a beautiful place and very well kept.
Standing in front of the monumeent that was dedicated to all the fallen soldiers. Just in back of where I took this picture was the place where Lincoln stood when he gave the Gettysburg address.
They put a flag on every grave in preparation for the Memorial Day celebrations. Memorial Day was started by women after the Civil War. It was previously called Decoration Day and the ladies wanted to commemorate their fallen fathers, husbands,brothers, and sons.
When we came back in to DC, we went to the White House. I was kind of hoping that President Obama would come out and wave at us, but Noooo.
What a beautiful home. 
2 comments:
that last picture of the white house looks beautiful! I also really like the pictures at Gettysburg. I'm glad that the reception was a success and that you were able to go to the temple. Any pictures at the temple?
Wow! What a fun trip! And so cool that you got to see the Isreali prime minister go past. It's great that you got to back with some of your family--that makes it fun! :)
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