Driving tour of Gettysburg battlefield with Jim Tate and dinner at Fairfield InnJun 29, 2011
|
|
| We signed up for a private driving tour with a licensed guide at the park visitor center. After you sign up and pay your money you set and wait for your guide. You don’t know who you are getting until they show up. About 10 minutes past the appointed time the guide showed up. He looked like he could be my father or grandfather. This little old man with a crooked dark blue cane come slooowly walking towards us. His name is Jim Tate and as we later found out will be 93 next month, is the only guide to have served during WWII, enlisted into the Calvary, and had a grandfather who fought at Gettysburg and is buried on Cemetery Hill, and has lived in Gettysburg all his life. Jim was really a fun guide who shared many side stories that kept the tour interesting as well as informative. For dinner we went to the Fairfield Inn about 10 miles outside Gettysburg. It is on the route of Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg back into Virginia (that part which had changed to West Virginia). This Inn was in operation at that time and provided a ham and bean soup to the soldiers as they passed through. The Inn is family own and operated and everyone in the family works there. In fact the young girl who waited on us and her father had caught the fresh catch of the day. Besides all the history of the place it has an interesting tradition. They have “Wishing Walls” The wood that makes up the walls is old and has many cracks into which patrons push coins and make a wish. When the cracks are filled they collect the money and keep it until Christmas when they match the amount and give it to a charity so more wishes can come true. It’s a neat idea and makes for some interesting formations up the sides of the walls. |
Advertisement 
|
