Day Two: Gettysburg

Knowing how hot it would be today, we tried to get up early so we could arrive to Gettysburg before it got too terribly hot. We arrived at the Gettysburg National Military Park around 9am.  I’d like to say that I am a history and Civil War buff, but I am not.  And I didn’t do a good job of research of the park before arriving.  It was clear once we arrived that we had no idea what we were going to see.  Thankfully, the visitors center had plenty of workers and volunteers to help.  After receiving some pamphlets and information, we decided to take the audio tour in our (air conditioned) car at our own pace. You can buy a book and cd from their gift shop or you can download the app to your phone for $9.99.  We decided to get the app and we are very glad we did.  It uses GPS and pretty much guides you through 16 stops along the way.  You need to only follow the signs and listen.  You can choose to pull over and get out at any of the stops.  We spent 4 hours on the tour, including a restroom and picnic stop in a nice shady area along the way. We could have spent so much more time there but we learned a lot this way and got a good overview of the battle. I highly recommend this visit and the audio tour and app.  Here are some photos from today.  

Day One: A Very Long Drive

We have arrived to our first destination for this trip.  We are staying the night in Hagerstown, Maryland before waking in the morning to continue to Gettysburg.  It was a long, but uneventful drive.  We left our house at 8:30 Cental this morning and arrived here at 8pm Eastern time.  We had beautiful weather, no rain, light traffic for the most part, little construction and slow down along the interstate, only one unplanned bathroom stop for one of the members of the family (I’ll let you guess who), and best of all: No Fighting the ENTIRE ride here!!  Score!

I drove most of the trip while Daniel worked on his laptop but managed to snap a few pictures while he drove.  We have 3 new states to add to our map of those we’ve visited.

Road Trip Smash Books

For our trip out West in 2011, I made the kids all smash books for them to keep souvenirs such as postcards, stickers, pins and pictures.  We even took some time during the trip to allow them to work on them. At the time I thought they enjoyed doing them.  For this trip, I had not given the idea much thought until Annessa brought it up last night.  Today while I was out, I looked for some supplies and brought them home today.  The kids all went to their rooms to retrieve their Trip out West books.  I couldn’t believe that they all still had them, intact, and even knew where they were.  I think they may be excited about making new ones for this trip!   And that makes me excited!  

Getting So Excited!

We are less than two weeks away from the beginning of our road trip!   We have been constantly pinning on Pinterest, talking to friends and mapping out all the places we are going. We still have a lot to do to get ready.  I remember with our last trip across the states, we had to come up with clever ways to keep the children entertained.  Well, they’re older now so I don’t think the coloring books, DVD players and lap desks are going to work like they did before.  I’ll have to be creative!

We came up with a name for this trip. Wrenndepence Road Trip!  Celebrating our country’s independence Wrenn style!