The Banzai Run

I left yesterday afternoon at 1:30 and arrived in Gettysburg at 7:15. I met J.D. for dinner, and then we went and had a couple of beers at the Reliance Mine Saloon. I had a very interesting conversation with Bill Frassanito about lots of things, and we were all out of there by 11:00.

We were up at 6:00 AM today, got ready, loaded up the car and headed off to The Avenue restaurant for breakfast. We headed out for Westminster (which is almost an hour drive) for the conference. Our navigator was too busy obsessing over bicycles and didn’t tell me to turn in time and we went about 7 miles out of our way. We finally got to the site of the conference, and J. D. and I led off. We spent about half an hour being interviewed by a reporter who knew absolutely NOTHING about the Gettysburg Campaign, and then signed books for a couple of hours. We did have a chance to visit with old friend Dean Shultz and then headed back up to Gettysburg.

The weather was atrocious, and not conducive at all to battlefield stomping, so we limited ourselves to a lap around the battlefield, mainly to check out the latest round of tree cuttings. Seeing a large portion of Culp’s Hill cleared of trees is really remarkable, and really changes the appearance of the battlefield in a major way. I dropped JD and our host off and headed out for another lovely six hour drive, and got home at 8:30 or so.

I’m exhausted. It was a major banzai run. I was gone for 32 hours, and spent 12 of those 32 hours driving. I’m just glad it’s over.