I didn't think I would make it on here tonight. Been working on my Gettysburg pictures and it has not made my laptop happy. One picture is a combination of 3 pictures stitched together and one had to be done manually because the software wouldn't do it. I had to do a lot of blending and painting, but it came out as a nice 20x30 print of cannons.

Today we had a guided tour of the battlefield in an incredible rain. No pictures today in the battlefield. It did clear later in the day. One picture I got in the town of Gettysburg was of the front of a building downtown  with an unexploded artillery shell stuck in the wall.

It is amazing the number of buildings in downtown Gettysburg that were there during the 1863 Battle. I'm told that there are several with artillery shells in them, but I've only found 2. The shells are small and hard to see.

The big picture that I was working on with the cannon is this.

It is 20x30 inches and my laptop was not happy with it. Had to do a boot at one point and continue with my editing. The canon with the green color is the type with a smooth barrel, and it shoots a canon ball. It has a range of 1 mile. The canon in the background has a rifled barrel and can shoot 2 miles with more accuracy.

The 3 day battle with 163,000 soldiers cost 51,000 casualties killed, wounded or missing. After the tour, we went to the Dobbins House and Tavern for an early supper which was fantastic. It is also said to be haunted with many reports of people having images in photos that they didn't see in person. The downstairs tavern was wonderful and we highly recommend it.

Well friends, it's after midnight and we've got to get to bed. Hopefully I will be back on tomorrow night.
 

Good evening friends, This may be a short post as I have a lot of pictures taken today and it's late. Spent the entire day driving around the Gettysburg Battlefield. So much to see and so much information. This may be a 2 or 3 day post. Nothing will be in chronological order as I'm not that organized, especially at this time at night.

On July 2,1863 163,000 soldiers descended upon Gettysburg. I can have more details tomorrow as we are going on a tour of the battlefield with a licensed guide in our truck. Some of the happenings in the town, the Farnsworth House, now a Tavern, (great food), was occupied by the confederates. They placed a sharpshooter in the uppermost window. You can see all the bullet impacts on the building from the Union soldiers trying to shoot him from who knows how far away. The impacts were colored white at one time so you could see them.

A Young Ladies Seminary was hit by an unexploded artillery shell. It is in the outside wall of the second floor just right of center. You can see the small black dot by the 3rd window from the right.

 
 The story of this happening can be seen on the History posted by the sidewalk.

I hope you can blow these up so you can see them better. If not, let me know and I'll try to do better.



Some info on the battlefield, sad but true. So many young men lost their lives. In one area, near the Historic battle of Little Round Top, lies the area called the Wheat Field. Not a large place, and the field has a lot of large rocks in it. I asked Jean how they could grow wheat with all those rocks there. After a moment of silence, I said, it must have been stone ground wheat. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. During the battle that took place in that field and nearby woods, control switched hands 6 times, and at the end of the fighting, 4,000 soldiers lay dead or wounded.

The Battle of Little Round Top was another very bloody fight. The Union soldiers controlled the top of this hill, very rocky. They had cannon, and some rifleman and sharpshooters. The Confederates attacked from an area called the Devils Den, Slaughter Pen and Valley of Death. All three areas were small and easily defended by the Union. In the picture, the Devils Den is the area of big rocks on the left. Confederate sharpshooters were hiding there. With scopes on their rifles, they were capable of hitting targets at 1000 yards. Little Round Top was only 500 yards away. Union soldiers had to crawl around so not to be a target. The area to the left of the rocks was Slaughter Pen, and the Confederates were sitting ducks there. The Valley of Death is to the right of the rocks, and again the Confederates were easy targets there.

 

One more view from the top of Little Round Top

In this 3 day battle of 163,000 men, total casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) were 23,000 for the Union army and as many as 28,000 for the Confederate army.

More tomorrow.....

Hello fellow humans. It has been a very long time since I posted something. If I have (had) any followers, please forgive me.

I am currently camping on the Gettysburg Battlefield at the Gettysburg Battlefield Resort, part of the Travel Resorts camping network. Excellent campground. Yesterday, my wife Jean and I drove to Antietam Battlefield in Maryland. It was exciting but sad at the same time. It was a 1 day battle of 12 hours, and 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing.

We also saw the Poffenberger Farm House which was turned into a Hospital, as was many homes and businesses during the battle. This is where Clara Barton got her start by going onto the battlefield with Gruel to feed the wounded soldiers. She also ran supplies to the different hospitals who badly needed them. She was given the title of Angel of the Battlefield by a surgeon. At one point a Confederate bullet when through her sleeve and killed the soldier she was helping.

The area referred to as the cornfield saw 2,000 Union soldiers killed or wounded in a 20 minute battle. The picture I took just looked like a mowed wheat field with a couple cannons in the distance, so I'm not going to include it here. 

Another battle was for the lower bridge, crossing the Antietam Creek. All but 500 Confederate soldiers were pulled from protecting this bridge. Reinforcements were needed at other areas of battle. They were deeply dug in and it took 3 assaults from Union Soldiers to take the bridge.  This picture is of Confederate cannons overlooking the bridge, called the Burnside Bridge after the Union Commander who defeated the Confederates there.

More tomorrow of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Well....... it's official today. We will be taking a vacation of a lifetime (for us). I'm hoping for photography opportunities beyond my wildest dreams. We will be going to Alaska. It will be fall there when we go, so there should be color in the tundra.

We will fly into Anchorage a few days before the trip starts and stay with a good friend. We will do a cruise to 12 glaciers, getting quite close as it is a small ship. I will be looking for some shot of reflections and sunsets there too. The trip starts with a bus ride to a lodge near Mount McKinley. There we will do a 3 hour hike with great views (so we are told) of the mountain and landscapes. The next day we take a bus ride to another lodge in Denali Park. This stay will be 2 nights, 3 days. From there it's a scenic train ride to Whittier where we pick up a cruise ship.

The cruise will be 7 days stopping at several towns and glaciers in the Inside Passage. The destination is Vancouver where we fly home.

I will be trying to learn all I can to take my photography up a couple notches as I may never get back to Alaska. I could never forgive myself if I came home with mediocre pictures. The last thing I want to do is get home , look at my pictures and think of the 3 ugly sisters (shoulda, coulda, and woulda). My dream is to be a great photographer, not just a photographer.

We enjoyed Savanna, Ga. so much, we stayed 2 more nights. It is a beautiful city and a photographer could go crazy there. We visited Tydee Island with its incredible beauty.

In Savanna, we went to Forsyth Park with its famous fountain. Needless to say we had to take pictures of it. In the near future they will be on our website www.bjrimages.com. While there, a couple asked us to take their picture with their camera, in front of the fountain. I put my flash on his camera as they were lit from behind and to expose for the fountain, they would have been dark. The picture came out great. A couple was getting married by the fountain and after watching for a bit, I saw a man kneeling in front of a lady then they hugged. We went over and congratulated them. We took his cell phone and got a few pictures of them and her new sparkling ring.

One the way to Little Tybee Island we stopped at Fort Jackson. It is a small fort on the Savanna River. At closing time, they had a cannon demonstration. I got a picture but it came out a bit blurry. I guess it was louder than I expected.

The trip home included a 8 hour drive an overnight in Fredricksburg, Va. From there an 8 1/2 hour drive to home. We had been in temperatures of high 70's to low 80's. Last night when we got here, it was in the 50's. Today a blizzard hit and we have 18 inches of snow so far and the morning temperature is predicted to be about 7 degrees and dropping.

I managed to get the birds fed so they are happy now. I know Spring can't be far away.

We had a wonderful tip to Florida. On the way home now. We had temperatures in the high 70's to low 80's while back home they had temperatures of -12.

Got to see Emerson Point Park with their nature trails and history. http://www.mymanatee.org/home/government/departments/parks-and-recreation/natural-resources/preserves/emerson-point.html. There are Indian mounds there created very long ago. For unknown reasons, the Indians would tear down their structures, burn them,  then cover the ground with a layer of shells, then dirt, and rebuild their structures. Some of these shells are visible in the undergrowth. Hugh Conch shells. If caught removing them, it is a minimum 5 years in jail and a hefty fine.

Spent some time by the docks watching the Pelicans diving for fish and looking at boats.

On our trip back home, we have stopped in Savanna, Georgia for the night. Here we will plan tomorrows adventures and a place to spend the night. Heading back to the cold and snow. 

Jean and I are on our way to Palmetto, Florida. This is the first day of our driving trip, and after 10 hours on the road, we're in Fredricksburg, VA. Tomorrows leg should take us to Savanna, GA.

The route here took us past some impressive mountains in VA. We chose our route to avoid traveling thru the mountains due to the possibility of bad weather. When we left Rochester, it was 12 degrees and here it's 48. We like 48 a whole lot better. Tomorrow night in Savanna, I might be in short sleeves. Hopefully in Savanna, we can get some evening pictures that I can post. In Florida I'm hoping for some sunset pictures over the Gulf of Mexico. It will be a short trip, but I hope to get a load of great pictures to share. Got a beautiful sunset picture over the Gulf taken many years ago with my first digital camera, a Canon Rebel. With my current camera, a Canon 5D Mark 2, the pictures should be phanom..... phanome....... great.

I'm new to blogging so tomorrow I will find out if I can add to this post, or if I have to do a new post.