Our Gettysburg visit

General Warren watches from his
spot on Little Round Top.

                GETTYSBURG, Pa. – This town has not been good, historically, to people named Lee, but we’ve had three great days here so far.

I photographed the several areas of the battlefield over the first two days and finally did some exploring today. More on the exploration in another paragraph.

I spent the first two days working on replicating some of the images I’ve produced before. I want the images in a different format and there is no way to get around re-shooting. It has been a good exercise because I’ve re-examined what I did previously and made some changes. The changes, I hope, made for better images.

Today was supposed to be a day of exploring the park. There are plenty of locations I hadn’t been to or had not spent enough time around. I started with the areas around Culp’s Hill. This was the scene of some brutal, costly fighting. It is an important part of the Gettysburg saga, in one way or another a part of all three days of fighting.

And I found something neat. I had been told that the placement of the flank markers and unit memorials were done by veterans of the United States Army only. No Confederate veterans were invited to participate in the work of placing the markers. There are no flank markers and the like, I was told, for the Confederate States Army.

Today I found left and right flank markers for the First Maryland Regiment and a unit marker for the First Maryland Regiment, CSA. Added to that, there is another marker denoting the advancement of that unit during the fighting. The unit marker has been changed to reflect that it now notes the Second Maryland Regiment.

Maryland never left the Union, but that state did have organized units on both sides of the war and I suspect that is why the Maryland CSA unit is remembered today on Culp’s Hill.

A monument to Union Sharpshooters.

I spent part of the morning in the Peach Orchard as well. I want to go back there and do some more exploring with my Nikon. I did nab a few images while I was there, but I want to give it more time in the future.

I always spend time at Little Round Top when I’m here and much of the first two days were in locations there. Found, with help from a Park volunteer, the location where Company B of the 20^th Maine waited in ambush for the Alabama boys and photographed both of the markers denoting the death of Union officer Strong Vincent.

The monument to General Warren on Little Round Top was frustrating this trip. I’ve been unable to figure out where I stood in 2010 when I photographed him overlooking the Valley of Death and the Confederate line on Seminary Ridge. I spent seven hours this week looking for the best shot. Finally, I abandoned that angle in search of something different and that image is included in this blog.

One last note: The Park has been jammed with visitors this week. Today the traffic was very heavy. The 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and the proximity of the 148^th anniversary of the battle here (July 1-3) drew a massive crowd. If you expect to be here for the 150^th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 2013), make your travel plans very early.

We had a visit with our two kids and our daughter-in-law today. All live nearby, so we have already had a delightful visit. Sunday begins the Civil War Institute, so I’m very excited.

Thanks for reading!

Shooting at Gettysburg...

The line of the 16th Michigan Regiment
at Little Round Top. The monument to
the right is near the right flank. The small
marker on the left is the regiment's
 left flank.

The Gettysburg battlefield is an unusual place. Its very name is enough to draw visitors by the hundreds of thousands every year and we’ve been among them for the last three years. The history is a powerful draw for people from around the world, especially from around the United States. The experience, if you listen to the surroundings, brings you back over and over again.

Start at the Visitors Center and take the short walk to the Armisted marker. That’s the high point of Pickett’s charge. From there, look across the field at the Virginia Memorial and measure the difference between a costly success and a bloody failure.

And then walk Pickett’s Charge. Think about what happened that afternoon, July 3, 1863.

From here, see the Wheatfield to
the right, the face of Little Round
Top to the left and Plum Run Valley
between them.

Everyone seems to have an area of the battlefield they want to see more than once. Kids seem to like the scattered boulders known as the Devil’s Den area. Others among us are partial to Little Round Top or the Wheatfield. Pick a spot, read the markers and memorials and then look at the vistas in front of you. Try to understand what happened on the spot where you stand all those years ago.

You aren’t reading a book or watching a movie. You’re standing on a spot where history happened. If you know something about the battle, it is easier to understand what you are looking at. But there is an audio tour and plenty of markers to help you understand what you see.

We’ll spend a week at Gettysburg, starting tomorrow. Part of that time will be dedicated to attending the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and the remainder will be spent on the battlefield itself, Nikon in hand. I want to augment the images I already have of the battlefield.

The monument to a Union sharp
shooter regiment. The monument
is located on the Loop near
the Wheatfield.

Two cameras this time, the D90 digital and the N8008 film camera. I want to shoot with black and white film, something I haven’t tried at Gettysburg before. You can convert color digital images to black and white (see www.speedylee.com for examples) but film gives a different feel to an image and it never hurts to push yourself as a photographer.

There are lots of websites devoted entirely to Gettysburg battlefield photography and you can find some tremendous images. But the battlefield allows for lots of different photographic approaches and we’ll see this week what images my ideas can produce.

Thanks for reading!

Meanwhile, out in the Pacific...

The Amelia Earhart story has interested me since I was in fifth grade. I spent an otherwise miserable year in the classroom with a teacher that even my mother didn’t like that year, but I was introduced to the Earhart saga when a buddy handed me his library book that he said was about a pilot.

He didn’t mention the ending.

That book sparked an interest that I haven’t lost to this day. Earhart was a remarkable person. She was courageous, intelligent, determined and sometimes lucky. A trailblazer, she was a pilot in an era when few women flew, let alone piloted. Her career is worthy of study.

Because she disappeared back in 1937, much of the attention directed toward her since then has been aimed at Earhart’s final flight. Wild theories, mostly drummed up to sell books or the like, have sprouted up in the decades since Earhart failed to show up at Howland Island in the Pacific. Obviously, I don’t have the answer. If I did, I’d call a press conference and write a book.

I have a guess as to what happened to Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, at the end of that flight way back before World War II. I’ll get to it momentarily. But I want to make a point first.

Amelia Earhart was a record-breaking pilot. She was the first woman to solo across the Atlantic and the first pilot, regardless of gender, to fly from Hawaii to California. She set numerous other historic marks, including an altitude record in an autogyro, the forerunner to today’s helicopters. She had her share of crackups as well, but she kept flying. Rather than blow off her career and jump to study her disappearance, we should marvel at her accomplishments.

This year, four women were in the starting field for the Indianapolis 500 and they acquitted themselves very well. But before those four women raced at the Brickyard, Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James broke down barriers first.

And before Guthrie and St. James there was Amelia Earhart, a classic Midwesterner with a dream who ignored those who told her, ‘no.’

What do I think happened to Earhart and Noonan? For more reasons than I have the space here to relate (and more than you probably want to read), I think they missed Howland to the west and, perhaps, a bit to the south. Earhart’s radio calls registered their strongest, even over modulated, on her penultimate call to the Coast Guard ship stationed at Howland for her flight. On her final radio call, the strength was still the maximum rating but not as over modulated as before.

Earhart may have started a search pattern to look for Howland. If so, her initial turn probably went away from the island and that decision may have cost her the final drops of gasoline in her fuel supply.

Earhart’s flight path and timing flew her directly into the rising sun, making for poor visibility. Worse, Howland’s location was actually a few miles from where Earhart’s charts indicated. That means she aimed for the wrong spot in the ocean and then might not have been in position to see the right spot.

Earhart and Noonan probably splashed into the Pacific shortly after their final radio call.

Were they rescued by a Japanese fishing trawler and taken as prisoners to Saipan Island? I can’t explain away the reports by former residents of that island that two white fliers were prisoners there before the war, but I don’t think Earhart or Noonan were ever there. Did they somehow get to an isolated island somewhere else in the Pacific and live their final days there? No, I don’t think so.

Lots of things went wrong during that flight. But rather than point out every costly error or failure, it is much more insightful to point out that Earhart and Noonan stretched the technological envelope of the day and the envelope tore open, spilling them into the Pacific.

Sometimes stuff happens.

Thanks for reading.

Marathon ends after bitter dispute with Garmin

            HANOVER, Maryland – The trip ended here at 5:38 p.m., Eastern Time on Saturday, making this a 2,547.2-mile, 106 hour, eight minute jaunt through America. That’s total time. I did not keep track of the actual driving time but I should note here that one of my goals was to complete the trip without exceeding the posted speed limit. I accomplished that, to the dissatisfaction of some of the drivers behind me.

            The last leg, from Dayton to Maryland, allowed me the chance to drive through a portion of West Virginia, my first visit there. I stopped to buy gas and spoke to a nice woman. My unscientific study of the people of West Virginia indicates that they are all very nice and all have Goodyear tires on their red pickup trucks.

            Saturday’s leg included some mountain driving. The mountains in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania are green this time of year and are quite pretty. There were some climbs, but not so steep that the Aveo had trouble. The speed limit was usually 65 mph, but it was 55 in several areas and that allowed for some extended gas mileage. The total stats for the trip are below.

            There is a very famous tunnel, I guess, that I had to drive through on one of the turnpikes. It is almost exactly one mile long and it gave me the creeps. The upper portion of the tunnel is lined with tiles and there are large patches where the tiles have fallen off. It made me wonder what other maintenance work has not been done recently and I was perfectly happy to get back out into the sunshine.

            I traveled with a Garmin GPS device, though I didn’t need it for the first 2,543 miles. I used it to negotiate the final few miles to the hotel and we had a little difference of opinion. The Garmin gave me clear instructions to get off at ramp 10 A, but after departing the highway I was able to determine that the men in US Army uniforms and guns were probably not part of my official welcoming committee. I figured out they probably had something to do with Fort Meade (the gate and wire fence were keys to this theory) and I returned to the highway. Garmin again instructed me to use exit 10 A, which is the ramp I used to ENTER the highway this time. Exit 10 B is a few hundred yards down the way and, as I approached this exit, Garmin informed me with an exasperated tone that it was “RECALCULATING.”

            I could have done without the attitude.

            I finally arrived at the hotel and eventually got some sleep. I visited with my son and his wife Sunday. I’ll have lunch with my son again today, pickup my daughter at the train station tonight and fly home Tuesday.

            The final stats:

Miles: 2548.8 (Including driving to the gas station from the hotel)

Gasoline: 74.1 gallons

Mileage: 34.3 mpg

Duration: 106 hours, eight minutes

Traffic jams: 2; St. Louis (traffic rolled but slowly) and some area near Indianapolis (road work).

Wrong turns: 2; somewhere in Oklahoma (I picked the wrong lane to be in) and near Hanover, Maryland (dispute with Garmin).

Weather: Mostly hot, even during the severe thunderstorm in Dayton, Ohio. Got some rain here in Maryland on Sunday.

Highways: Easy to remember. 40 to 44 to 70 to Maryland.

Hope you’ve had a nice week. Thanks for reading.

Normally I like the gear selector to be in Drive...

                DAYTON, Ohio – Generally speaking, it’s a bad thing to be sitting on a highway with the gear selector in park and the emergency brake tugged on.

            That’s where I was today for about half an hour, sitting on the I-70, about 80 miles west of Indianapolis. There is some kind of work project on the highway in that area and all of us were stopped cold. Eventually we got going, stop and going, back to near normal speed and then stopped again. Finally it all started moving again but I spent close to an hour moving less than four miles.

            I talked to my wife and daughter by cellphone, left a message for my son and drank a soda. I figured the cell phone calls were okay since nobody was moving. There was no distracted driving because there was no driving. It was hot and, after a while, I turned the air conditioning off and dropped the windows.

            Earlier in the day I drove through St. Louis at a record slow speed, but I didn’t mind. This is the city where my Rams went after they jilted me decades ago. I’ve never been bitter about the Rams leaving California, just sad. Anyway, the traffic snarl took me by the Edward Jones Dome (where the Rams play) and by Gateway International Raceway (where the cars race).

            Then I drove toward my appointment with the mess near the Illinois/Indiana line.

            When I finally aimed myself toward Ohio, I saw dark clouds and fiddled with the radio. There was a severe weather warning for thunderstorms and about the time I heard the news, I saw a terrific bolt of lightning zap down from the sky. It was pouring when I got here and I was soaked just going to check into the hotel.

            I have a funny story about Dayton. I was supposed to be flying to Daytona Beach, Florida., to work the 24-hour sports car race there about eight years ago and I booked my flights through a travel agent. I noticed the plane ticket (remember those?) had the letters DAYTON spread across the ticket with two or three spaces between the letters and figured the printer ran out of space for the letters A BEACH. When I reach Atlanta, I discovered the travel agent had actually booked me to fly to Dayton, Ohio.

            The airline offered to rebook my flight for just $2,100. I called the travel agency, got my agent and she booked the flight to Daytona Beach for $210 (she paid for it herself) while I argued with the Delta guy. He was unhappy about printing my new ticket for me, but he had to eventually when my name showed up on the passenger list for a flight headed for DaytonA BEACH, FLORIDA.

            I had a lengthy layover and it was during those hours that I saw a 2-woman food fight in the airline terminal food court. The final word on this story: Spaghetti.

            Tomorrow is the final day of this trip. I’ll reach Odenton, Maryland in the late afternoon and probably catch up on my sleep. I get to see my son and his wife on Sunday, a good day for all of us. My daughter picks up her car Monday night and I fly back home on Tuesday.

            With or without food fights.

            No stats tonight because I don’t want to get my paperwork wet. I left it in the car due to the rain. I did notice that I’ve gone over the 2,000-mile mark for the trip.

            Thanks for reading.

Sleepy in Springfield

                SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Windy again today but not as pushy as the day before. It is hot in this part of the country and I’m still playing with the air conditioner, cutting it off during longer uphill climbs. There weren’t very many of those today, thankfully.

                I am in the area where the storms did such terrible damage but I have seen very little evidence from the highway. There were some downed trees an hour of south of Joliet, but I saw nothing in the Joliet area. I asked a toll taker on the toll way if there were any highway problem areas due to storm damage and she told me the debris from the storm was off the highway within the same 24 hour period of the storm and that the real damage was done about four miles away from the highway.

                Leaving Amarillo, I was impressed by the excellent signage the highways in that part of the country. Everything is clearly marked. The drivers were extraordinarily courteous in Texas. Even the big rig drivers seemed patient this morning. I crossed the border into Oklahoma and, following Mother’s rule that you shouldn’t say anything at all if you have nothing nice to say, I’ll say nothing.

                By the time I reached Missouri, it was every man for himself and I felt as though I’d never left California.

                One cool thing: The highway took me across the Sac and Fox Native American Reservation. I believe that is the nation which gave us the greatest athlete in history, Jim Thorpe. I thought about Thorpe and the idea came to me that even if time has changed some of the landscape, Thorpe saw this same land as a youngster. I was happy to see it today; it’s a pretty part of the world.

                There is a Civil War battlefield a small distance from tonight’s hotel, but it is in the wrong direction for me to go see tomorrow. This is the Wilson’s Creek battlefield. I am not familiar with the battle and I have 600 miles or so to cover tomorrow with bad weather expected behind me, so I’ll have to skip it.

                Okay, the stats. You’ll see that the very open country yesterday and today made for good mileage conditions.*

Mileage stats: Day 2

First stint, Flagstaff to Albuquerque: 294.1 miles, 8.5 gallons, about 34.6 mpg.

Second stint, Albuquerque to Amarillo: 263.4 miles, 7.0 gallons, about 37.6 mpg.

Stints combined: 35.9 mpg.

Total miles for the day: 557.5. Travel time: 10 hours, 30 minutes (roughly).

Mileage stats: Day 3 (first stint only)

First stint, Amarillo to Oklahoma City: 253.1 miles, 7.1 gallons, about 35.6 mpg.

Total for the trip (as of the OkC stop): 34.0 mpg

I did not buy gas when I arrived at the hotel tonight, so today’s second stint is not available yet.

Please note: The on board computer is the one in my brain. All stats subject to editorial review!

Thanks for reading!

Amarillo by Evening

    

                AMARILLO, Texas – Today’s second stint was largely wind-blown. The Aveo and I had to push through the winds of northern Arizona, New Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Texas. The Aveo has a fairly tall profile and cross winds make life busy for the driver. You have to be awake, especially when you go around a big rig or have one go around you.

            My determination to be extra efficient with the driving time went out the window as soon as I saw a highway sign informing me that Winslow, Arizona was less than an hour outside of today’s starting point, Flagstaff. My will power steadily drained with every flashing mile and I pulled off the 40 at the second Winslow exit.

            I drove two blocks and pulled into the McDonalds on my left and parked there. Then I stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and looked for a girl in a flatbed Ford. I had hoped something magical might happen because I noticed that there was a Ford dealership across the highway from the McDonalds.

            No flatbed Fords showed up and nobody slowed down to take a look at me, but a Chevy pickup towing an open trailer turned left and went by. I took some snapshots and videoed the pickup.

            Sometimes you win and sometimes you have to change songs.

            I popped into the McDonalds for a soda, since I had used their parking lot, and told the young woman behind the counter that I had stood on the corner. That’s when I found out there is a corner some distance away with a statue and that’s where everyone goes to reenact the song. Well, maybe that’s where they go. I go to the one near McDonalds.

            The remainder of the trip was routine. I bought gas in Albuquerque. I’ll have to do the stats in tomorrow’s blog. I left the stuff in the car and I’m too worn out to get it now. Went over 1,000 miles for the trip just after crossing into Texas.

            Next stop is Springfield, Missouri. The route goes through Oklahoma City (where I change to the 44), Joplin, Missouri and then to Springfield.

            Thanks for reading.

Day One: Sleepy in Flagstaff

                FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Arrived here safely after an early start from home. Lots of trees here, very pretty, and despite the very strong sun, the air is comfortably cool at this altitude.

                Charged out the door at 4:30 a.m. in order to beat the traffic around the Los Angeles area, only to discover a short portion of Highway 101 is closed at night for some sort of repair. There was a brief lull in the driving while we all waited in line to exit the freeway and get right back on. That was the only slowing for the entire trip.

                My daughter’s Chevy Aveo is a comfortable car to drive, though I prefer my Mustang. The Aveo’s little motor runs along nicely, but I baby it on the steeper climbs. I drop the speed five mph or so and turn off the air conditioner in order to cut the stress on the engine. I should hasten to add that there is no real reason for being so easy on the car, it runs well. I’m just careful with smaller motors.

                The speed limit for much of today’s drive was 75 mph and in the Mustang I’d have dropped the ragtop, cut the stereo and listened to her howl. But I kept the Aveo at 70 or below and had a nice, easy drive.

The tallest hill I drove over today was 7,335 feet just outside of Flagstaff. Up here, the trees are very pretty and, since I wasn’t hurrying, I enjoyed the view.

                There are some nasty wildfires in Arizona just now. That’s something Southern Californians understand pretty well. I saw some blackened trees, but they might have been charred by ground clearing fires and could be perfectly healthy trees. The upper branches are clean and green.

Mileage stats: *

First stint, Oxnard to Victorville, Calif.: 128.8 miles, 4.7 gallons, about 26.1 mpg.

Second stint, Victorville to Kingman, Ariz.: 223.4 miles, 6.4 gallons, about 33.3 mpg.

Stints combined: 31.7 mpg.

Total miles for the day: 487. Travel time: 8 hours, 7 minutes.

*Figures produced without much sleep!

Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: With 6.7 seconds remaining in the NBA Finals game, the hotel's television carrier aired the Emergency Broadcasting System test. I didn't see the final play for several minutes. GROAN!!

Baltimore bound

I’m going to drive to Baltimore on Tuesday. The trip will take a while and traffic may slow me down some. Still, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I wasn’t starting from my home in Southern California.

My daughter Regan, the 24-year old, recently moved to Philadelphia because she wants to live in Boston (don’t ask). She didn’t want to go alone and her roomie was interested in an adventure, so they shipped their big stuff (beds, bikes, tables and stuff) and drove the roomie’s Honda east. Now Regan wants her car so to enhance her job search capability.

My original plan was to make the drive in July when I might have a co-driver but that had to be scrapped when Regan decided she needed the car earlier than my plan called for.

The car, a Chevy Aveo, is prepped and ready. The car’s four Goodyear Eagle GT radials have been inspected, rotated and inflated for maximum performance. I have a Trip Tik supplied by the Southern California Automobile Club to keep me on the route, a GPS device to supply a vocal co-driver, a cooler for all the sodas I’m starting out with and a bunch of stuff Regan left at home but can no longer live without.

Oh, and I have a new cellphone. This one holds a charge. My last one held a charge the same way a flour sifter holds water.

The one thing I could not plan for has been the nature-related destruction along my intended route. I’m driving to Flagstaff, Arizona the first day (there are wildfires in Arizona right now), then stopping in Amarillo, Texas next. Joplin, Missouri was supposed to be next but the terrible damage caused by the storms there have forced the suddenly homeless to live in area hotels. I saw the same thing when I visited the South recently.  Anyway, the hotels in Joplin are full and I am still working on that portion of the trip.

The sharp reader will note that I am driving to Baltimore despite the fact that Regan lives in Philly. I found a flight home from Baltimore for $130 less than the cheapest flight from Philly and, since our son Sean, the 29-year old, lives with his wife, Mindy, near Baltimore, Maryland became my destination of choice. Regan will take the train to retrieve her car.

The only camera I’ll bring with me will be will be a small digital. I don’t want to be standing still with a camera in my hand when the wheels on the car could be rolling. I’ve left plenty of time for the trip, but I want to get the driving done. Still, the chance to see both our kids at the same time demands that I record the moment.

In my adult life, I have visited 31 of the 48 contiguous states. I would like to see the complete 48 before it’s all said and done and I’ll see two new ones on this trip, Missouri and West Virginia.

In all the traveling I’ve done, this will be the first time I’ve driven all the way across the continent. Our family drove from Los Angeles to Alabama a few times when I was a kid and Dad and I drove from LA to Indianapolis the day after I got my Drivers License. I’ll probably blog along the way, assuming I can stay awake long enough to write.

Thanks for reading.

My latest grand vision...

Years ago, I used to terrify my family with the following sentence: “I’ve come up with my latest brilliant plan.” The kids would groan and look worried. My wife would nod her head and then brace herself.

                I never knew why.

                To quote the late Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I’ve got vision and the rest of the world is wearing bifocals.

                Why doesn’t the rest of the world see this: J.R. Hildebrand, the rookie who crashed out of the lead in the final corner of the last lap of the Indianapolis 500 Sunday should have already contacted advertising/marketing execs from every automobile insurance company in the world with the following script proposal:

                “Hi, I’m J.R. Hildebrand. Nobody knows better than I do how tough it is to make a left turn in traffic. That’s why you need (fill in company name later) insurance. No matter if you scrape your car into something or have some other type of accident, they’ll help you get your job finished. By the way, if you make a mistake, fess up to it. I did and it got me into this neat commercial.”

                Show Hildebrand’s wreck while he’s talking.

                This is a guaranteed winner. A can’t miss hit. The obvious Commercial of the Year Award winner.

                But I doubt you’ll see it.

                Did anyone take note of the fact that Kevin Harvick won the Coca Cola 600 when Dale Earnhardt ran out of gas on the last lap? One of Harvick’s sponsors is Shell gasoline. He should be filming an ad this week about the benefits of attaining better gas mileage from Shell gasoline. He isn’t allowed to use Shell in his race cars, but that is not the point. His ad would go something like this:

                “Hi, I’m Kevin Harvick and I’m a race car driver. Believe it or not, we need good gas mileage, too. That’s why I know that you should be buying Shell gasoline. You’ll always know you have the best team in the business helping you and your car get where you need to go.”

                And we see Harvick racing by the slowing Earnhardt on his way to the checkered flag.

                Then there this neat little dirt track in southern Alabama named Deep South Speedway. High banked dirt, 4/10s of a mile. And the track is near Loxley, Alabama.

                Loxley. Know what I’d do if I ran the place? Can’t you guess? I’d search all over the area for someone named Robin and call him or her Robin of Loxley.

                Yes, your memory is correct. That was Robin Hood’s name, Robin of Loxley. And Loxley, er, Robin, would be driving a Plymouth Arrow, sponsored by Target. I guarantee you; the Loxley Target Arrow would be eligible for competition in one class or another. And all of Robin’s crew would be dressed in green.

                Why do I think these ideas would sell? Because a generation ago, some genius marketed the idea of pet rocks and people bought ‘em. Next to the pet rock, my ideas look pretty good, don’t you think?

                Thanks for reading.