October 20, 2012 - Gettysburg on Segways

October 20, 2012 - Gettysburg on Segways.  Have you ever ridden a Segway?  I hadn't until today.  Now, I want one.  It is a cool ride.  We covered the ten-mile trail around the Gettysburg battlefield on Segways today.  After a thirty-minute training session, we set off with a Segway guide and a historical guide on audio fed to us through a plug in our ears.  The entire trip around the battlefield took about three hours with several stops when we "dismounted" the Segways to look and listen to the audio tape.  Each of the Segways was named for a horse which was on the field during the battle.  Mine was named Charlemagne, after the favorite horse of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, hero of the Battle at Little Round Top and later Governor of Maine. 

We selected the 2:30 PM tour because I wanted the low light of late afternoon for pictures.  It was a beautiful afternoon, with plenty of sunshine and puffy white clouds hanging over the rolling hills and multi-colored forest.  There is a mystique at Gettysburg.  Commonly recognized as the battle which changed the course of the war, it was also the bloodiest battle of the war over its three-day duration.  The battle was won by the Union on July 3, 1863, the same day Vicksburg fell to Grant allowing "the Father of Water to again flow unvexed to the sea."

Today's pictures show the Segway tour and sights along the way.  There are statues of General Lee and Longstreet.  Interestingly, Lee is displayed atop his favorite horse, Traveler.  Lee actually did not use Traveler at Gettysburg.  A few weeks before the battle, Traveler had thrown the General and the General was still in a pout, leaving Traveler in the back while riding a different horse, Lucy Long.  There are also pictures of some Confederate reinactors, views from Little Round Top and the National Cemetery dedicated by Lincoln with the Gettysburg Address.  There is also the ever-present church steeple and colorful trees.  Finally, you will see a solitary bare tree, known as a "witness tree" because it was alive and witnessed the battle, including Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863.  Pickett's Charge, of course, failed to break the Union lines and turned the battle which turned the war. 

Where from here?  I don't know.