Patrick Henry's Red Hill

Tucked neatly in the town of Brookneal, VA

is Patrick Henry's modest estate.

 There is a little gift shop and a very interesting

film of his life that you must see.

This is the original house and there was an add on

to the right of the house by one of his

descendents and it burnt down sometime in the

1900's and never rebuilt - but there

is an outline of where the addition stood.

 This is the slave quarters where Harrison and Milly

the coachman, housemaid lived.

 Inside a very busy Milly spun her own yarn.

 This is what has been termed a "summer" kitchen

because it was housed in another structure

but in this case it was the only kitchen.

The back of the house with a beautiful garden.

This is the entry way to the main house.

 The master bedroom on the first floor.

 Love a fireplace.

 Tight quarters.

 Blacksmith shop.

 Coachhouse and stable.

 Entry to the stable from the top of the hill.

 This is an osage orange tree that has been around forever.

Patrick was married twice and had 17 children between them.

He was a very eloquent speaker and was a leader in 

Virginia politics (being governor) and helped

bring about the American Revelution. 

"Give me liberty or give me death."

TN - Oddly different entries

That I'm totally liking - just like my previous albums.

Scrapping whatever moves me at the time. 

I like it.

So the page on the left - is our fun time with

the grands and ending a great day with ice cream and

a visit to a record shop.

Owen, loves all things music, and has a real 

phonograph in which he plays real records. Very cool.

The page next to it is a photo of my grandfather

when it was about 5 years old that

has been hanging in my home for years.

I have passed that gem off to my cousin for safe keeping.

 I have been using chunky bits in the notebook

and it hasn't been toooo fat.

Love that the bottlecap had Jersey Farms on it.

 On the heritage page I found those stickers.

Very cool stickers - I did think they were rubons at first

which is why they langquished for a bit in the ole stash.

Love how its coming together.

Studio Calico, Tim Holtz, Michael's pins.

The Festival of San Gennaro - Little Italy NYC

Took a ride to the train, to hop the subway to walk

a few blocks to Little Italy to the festival where the streets

are lined with all kinds of yummy food.

 Our pals Peggi and Lester who graciously let us camp

in their yard hung out with us on the streets of Little Italy.

 Nothing screams Italian like the colors on this building.

 Just a few of the sights, sounds and smells of all this 

yummy food.

 One of each???

 Made a new friend. LOL!

 Forgot my hat.

 This is the statue of Januarius, Bishop of Benevento and

people stopped to pay their respects.

 While we were in NYC and catching the

train at the WTC we decided to go to the 911 Memorial.

 A lot has changed since we were there, the trees

have grown and as well as the crowds.

 Lots of neat things.

Love this art work.

And there's our motely crew.

 George, Robin Peggi, Lester and Tom

The Jersey sky line in the front and NYC in the back.

It's a cool skyline.

It was fun. 

It would've been more fun if there weren't so many

people involved. LOL.

BIG crowd.

The food was terrific, however, there was a

seriously lack of facilities.

And I had my first gelato. It was delish!

The Gettysburg Diorama

You can see the entire 3 day battle unfold

watching both the Union and Confederate movements

over 6,000 acres in 1863.

 This is the actual city of Gettysburg.

 This diorama has over 20,000 handpainted soldiers, horses, cannons,

and buildings that took 5 men, 5 years to complete.

 This is from one end to the other.

 It portrays all the battle sites and scenes

and there is a 30 minute presentation with lights and sounds

that explains what's going on.

 I did the best I could here with lights and glass.

Not your friend.

 The diorama is very realistic.

 The houses that were in the battlefield 

were used as headquarters and staging areas.

A must see in order to really see the magnitude and

devastation this battle was to both sides.

Gettysburg - The Battlefield

Today we did the auto tour of the battlefield.

We encountered a just a few issues getting the narrations going.

We started with the CDs as we have a CD player and would be

easy to hear and operate.

Well....

I popped the first CD in the player and got a read disc error

and then found I couldn't eject said disc.

We tried for over an hour to get that puppy out of there.

 SO

we marched back to the visitor's center and told

I told them my sad story so bless their hearts

they gave me the iPhone APP tour.

Download mytours app put in the code and shazam..

 A soldier's point of view..

Well.

We sat for another hour trying to get it

to run over a blue tooth app on the radio.

 And then we were off, making a wrong turn because

you are follow - auto tour signs that are not

numbered on the streets.

(Only numbered when you get to the monument).

 And not everything is clearly marked, but Tom figured

things out and we finally got rolling.

 It was very informative with sound effects and everything,

but I missed a lot of it because I was hopping

in and out of the car taking pictures.

 As you can see the battlefield is stunning and

I can't fathom 51,000 soldiers from both sides died in a 3 day battle.

 The monuments are amazing and there one each

for each state fighting on both sides.

 It was a hard fought battle on both sides, with the

Union being victorious.

 People that lived there came out to watch the battle.

I can't even imagine watching such carnage.

It had to be horrific. 

 Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War.

 Yankee soldiers.

 80 cannons were used in the biggest artillary bombardment 

of the confederate soldiers.

 12,500 Confederate soldiers advanced to Cemetary Ridge

in what's known as Pickett's charge.

 It was a tight fight, soldiers were using hand-to-hand

combat, bayonets, rocks and fists with

the South coming close to take it the hill.

 There were 2 civilian casualties in the war:

Jenny Wade who was shot in her sister's kitchen by

a stray bullet while she was baking bread for the soldiers.

 Her's is a sad tale of star crossed lovers.

 John Burns was 69 years old when he

joined the front lines as a volunteer and received

numerous wounds.

 Gettysburg had a population of 2, 400 people that

had to take care of 14,000 Union troops and 8,000 Conferate prisoners.

 The results of this victory are priceless. ... The charm of Robert E. Lee's invincibility is broken. The Army of the Potomac has at last found a general that can handle it, and has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hard-fought failures. ... Copperheads are palsied and dumb for the moment at least. ... Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad.

— George Templeton Strong, Diary, p. 330.

 On November 19, 1863 President Lincoln

delivered the Gettysburg Address and dedicated

 Soldier's National Cemetery.

It's a beautiful park honoring the fallen soldiers that

fought to keep the Union together.

Put this on your bucket list.

We went back to the battlefield after sunset.
Gorgeous.

Bucket list.

Beautiful any time of day.
Pennsylvania Monument.
My birth state.