GETTYSBURG & LA QUINTA

     It was the "Unknowns"---the hundreds of "Unknowns" with  brick-shaped, granite markers and a number---like maybe 251 or 310. That's all that's left to note their existence.They were mostly young lads---many having been misled about the value and length of what was to be a 620,000+++++ casualty bloodbath.  Chaps with their lives ahead of them--- but now lost in the vast expanse of time. What I'm talking about is the mammoth Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg.  Can't seem to shake it the feelings it gave Ann and me.     

     Left Gettysburg KOA early, this AM and made it to Salem, Virginia's La Quinta Inn, bought a 6-pack of Miller Lite and headed for the pool. It was just 2:00 PM, but too far from the crib to do in one day (by our standards).

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     Some stream-of-conscious thoughts from this EGG trek up through Pa., upper N.Y., New Hampshire and Maine are: 

     The old, old buildings and churches and graveyards---huge graveyards because so much time has passed and  so many people have up and died. The            old, old homes, and skinny streets, and lush, lush flora---due in great part to the record amount of snow melt. The beautiful  wildflowers---many the same as down south, but healther-looking. The lack of tacky billboards, the cool, clear air; the seeminfly endless forests in more places than I had imagined; the large numbers of churches---some 200 yrs or more old---all painted white, with neatly groomed yards; the stretches of awful roads---expanding in the summer, and then buckling up in the sub-zero winter.  Met a nice fellow from Vermont who went through 8 chords of wood "...plus I ran the furnace most mornings.  Had about six weeks of -25 below."  Then, there was the very dandy haddock burger up in northern Maine at Beales---a feast in a big basket, with fries, tarter sauce and a side of purple cabbage slaw---all eaten right next to where the lobster and fishing boats dock up and  the sea breeze was a- puffing and everybody laughing and stuffing their face.    

     Home to the crib manana---(knock on  the simulated wood bedside table here at La Quinta.)

     Here's wishing you peace and happiness.

    Oh yeah, perhaps you'll want to check out www.richarddavidrandall.com. The book, Oh, Nelly! , was just released. A second book will be coming out late this fall.     

     Later........