Brushing up on history

After leaving Philly we needed to brush up on some of our American history. When initially driving through Pennsylvania we stopped at the visitor centre. We received an overload of information but were highly recommended a visit to Gettysburg. So we plotted this into our trip.

Gettysburg staged one of the biggest and some say the most crucial battle of the civil war and of course the famous 'Gettysburg Address' by Abraham Lincoln. We settled in for an introductory DVD, narrated by Morgan Freeman (which was never going to be bad). The introduction then leads you to the Gettysburg cyclorama, which is a large painting of the battlefield, first popular in the 1800's. The painting itself weighs 12.5 ton.

One small section of the 360° cyclorama

We had a walk and read through the museum. Once we were informed and overwhelmed, we set off on the driving tour to see some of the famous battlefields. The whole experience took over four hours but it was well worth it. 

finishing the day with civil war inspired burgers and settling in for another cosy night in Walmart, once again reaching negative ten Celsius.

Having risen pretty early the next morning we made our way to Washington DC, stopping briefly at Cunningham State Park for a small morning hike.

For those who are unaware, Washington DC is absurdly expensive, so we decided to park outside the state, in Maryland. Thankfully there is a very effective metro, that will take you into the heart (for a fee of course). We spent the afternoon, walking around and observing Washington's must see attractions. Including but not limited to; the Washington monument, the white house, the Abraham Lincoln memorial and the Thomas Jefferson memorial. I say observed as we had reached our holiday reading quota the day before.

The next day we were back into the reading, visiting the Smithsonian Space and science museum and the Native American museum. Before promptly leaving Washington having become sick of the hustle and bustle of the city.

Initially we felt uneducated not understanding some of the history prior to the trip. However we soon learned that American's know very little Australian history or even cities, which put our mind at ease at a number of occasions.

Having seen a number cultural and historical highs, we needed to see some current lows so we headed to the strippers in a small town, Greensboro (North Carolina).