Gettysburg, a town I need to address

A Battlefield in Gettysburg

I really like Gettysburg, Pennsylvania as a small town. It's steeped in history and only 45 minutes from our house, so it automatically rates as a must-see stop when we have occasional guests. As for cruising?  It rates a lot higher.
   Scenery like the picture I snapped to the right is common in the battlefields. In ten minutes I could shoot enough beautiful images to create 100 Christmas cards.

  

Memorial along the road
somewhere

     Then there's the history.  Did you know more Americans died in the Civil War than all other wars combined? And that's just the Americans who died.  (Admittedly, I have no idea how many of the soldiers we were fighting died. I'm still doing my research.)
          As we drove through the battlefields we saw many, many, many of headstones exactly like this one, only different.  The name of the soldier this particular stone  memorializes was named Massachusetts, and he fought in the First Regiment.  The same regiment had guys named New Jersey, Connecticut, and even Ohio.  It's easy to see these states got their names by being named after soldiers who had fallen while defending our great American institutions such as Social Security and Nasa.
     History is so worth studying!

Old building where Lincoln  had the
Gettysburg Address tattooed on his
palm in case he forgot some of it.

       One of the more important facets of modern day Gettysburg is how the architecture has been meticulously preserved.  From the street, we couldn't see one single air conditioning unit and we agreed we would never stay there in the summer.

     Note also how perfect the roof lines have been maintained.  It would be easy to imagine renting a room on the top floor back in 1863, heading off to war each morning, and then coming home each night with an armload of groceries, or perhaps stopping in to say hi to the proprietor at Battlefield Tattoos (L).

    

WTF?!

     But my favorite stop on this adventure had to be the shop located at the only available parking place we could find after an hour of driving.  I swear, Gettysburg has exactly 32 parking spots in the main shopping district.  The only other option is off-street parking where some really questionable looking thugs were killing time looking into people's cars.

     I won't disrespect the shop's privacy by publishing their name here, but the signage in the image should clue most anyone except women to be able to easily find it.

     Those objects along the sidewalk might look like tumors, but they're actually bird houses made from brightly painted gourds.  In other words, a can of spray paint, a 1" drill bit, and you too can be an arts and crafts wiz! 

     And at $75 a pop?
     Hey!  I'll bet  you're glad you came along on this cruise, eh?  Now, go tell your boss you've had enough of his bullshit, quit your job, and get cracking!  The market for gourd birdhouses has never been hotter and someday you'll be bragging you got in on the ground floor!

Google sent this image to me as an award,
"Best New Blog"