The best laid plans of mice and men, or in our case, Bill & Arlette, sometimes go astray! Yessireee..........Our plan was to go 180mi, from Charlottesville,VA to Gettysburg,PA in one day , snicker, snort,hee hee, what a joke, 'specially for us! We started out fairly early, and the first marker we came to was a farm called Ellwood. He was just a simple farmer, minding his own business when all of a sudden his farm was surrounded with both Union and Confederate Soldiers, so.... what's a guy to do but start shootin'? Next thing he knew they took over his farm, it was used for all sorts of stuff, but the most impressive was the cemetery, although we are going backwards, this really caught us off guard. There is a head stone to honor Stonewall Jacksons Left arm, you heard me right, only his left arm. He was shot with friendly fire and had to have his left arm amputated, the Chaplain saw the arm and so revered Jackson he buried it at his brother~in~laws, (Ellwood),
and later a stone was put up to commemorate it, I've
heard of hero worship, but....Oh by the way, Jackson died shortly after this from infection! After the war Elwood couldn't get his farm back because of squatters, they were Union, and by going through the courts,it still took several years before they got it back. As we headed down the road we saw so many battlefields, on both sides of the road, "we are not going to stop at every place we see" says we, riiight! Stopped at the home of James Madison, sorry, closed, so onward we went, next in line was the cutest little cabin marked, "The Gilbert Farm" Zip... off we went! Found out that George Gilbert was a "born into " slavery, and that he and his wife had been freed. He was married, and tho his wife lived on another plantation, they had 5children.After he was freed, George built this house, planted a huge garden and had pigs, he eventually bought the 16acres for $500, at that time acreage was selling for $1 an acres, but because he was a black man, he had no choice but to pay the price if he wanted the land. He did pay it off, he and his wife, just before they both died, but not having a will, the kids got nothing, pretty sad really. Today it belongs to the Government and has been restored, right down to the pig, I even met him, his name was Jimmy Dean, coincidence, I think not! The garden and the pigs are used for food at the James Madison house, yes the pig is used for food and another one is added when needed. Quite a place,we so admired the perseverance of this brave couple.
Onward we go, were there about an hour, Now it is 1pm, but we had a place we had marked on the map, so went there first, it was an old train station hotel, that was turned into a hospital during the Civil war. It was called the Exchange Hotel, because in order to get there you had to make 14 changes of trains, crazy! But such an interesting story, wow! We were met at the door by a lady in costume,and I cannot believe that I did not get a picture, ratz, she was adorable. She gave us the grand tour of 2 floors, and we checked out the 3rd floor on our own, it contained hospital wards and an operating room, right down to the bloody rags in the bucket, and a bloody apron hanging on the door, very well done! It was also a museum for the Chesapeake railway, some may remember its logo was a cat named 'Chessie'. She also told us how the black ladies of the town made money selling fried chicken, they would put it on a tray with coleslaw, and desserts, and walk around with the trays overhead and folks from the train would take what they wanted and leave the money on the tray, now THAT is enterprise, do ya think? By now it was almost 2:30pm and we were hungry, we wanted more than just Micky D's, so went down town Gordensville, and it is about as big as Sumpter to the Eastern Oregonians, and Canby to the Western Oregonians, but we spotted this place called POMME, should have taken the hint, but NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo not us, we marched right in, met by a young man in a suit, He seated us and things went downhill for a while after that, it was ah, humm, let's see, not sure, just water thank you, guess we are ready, Bill ordered 'pork medallions on a bed of butter lettuce with a specially prepared dressing' uuh,huh, and I ordered 'Bacon & apple and goat cheese wrapped in filo on a bed of spinach', we couldn't pronounce either dish, still can't, but the chef came out personally to see if it "met our standards", yeh right, our standard is usually Ihop, Dennys, Wendys, but I will say, it was really deee licious, even Bill said so, good thing we were finished when we got the bill, it was $40, for lunch??? In a teeny little place like that? Glad we only had water to drink. Actually it was great, but by then we decided there was NO way we were gona make it to Gettysburg, so headed home to Sassy and Whody. But what a great day it was, I personally can't imagine having a heritage like the folks back here, they are a proud people, and they should be. For this time 'Bon Appetit' Love ya all, Arlette & Bill too, and the Sassy.
PS As you can see my daughter Donna has made over the blog, and I am gona go into Flickr and see if I can put a few pictures on for you, they will be put on one at a time,but hope you all enjoy them.
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