Valley Forge and the Battle of Antietam

We started off the morning having our own Winter at Valley Forge.  According to the park ranger the continental army was conceived at the continental congress in Philadelphia, but it was born at Valley Forge with the help of a French General and intensive training. 

no words...

Andy hanging with the new recruits to the Continental Army.

The original "Pentagon"- George Washington's command center at Valley Forge. While we were inside we were joined by about 20 boy scouts.  It gave us a great idea of what it was like when 27 people were living in the house for the winter- CROWDED.

The night before visiting Valley Forge, I was reading my favorite guide book, 1000 places to see...., and it mentioned a spectacular luminary display at the Antietam Battlefield the first Saturday of December- which was the next day :)  We very spontaneously changed direction and headed to Maryland.   After the three hour drive we arrived just after they opened and prepared to wait- for hours. 

David was having an argument with the GPS over her directions down windy backroads when she told us "go 2 miles, turn left on Stottlemeyer Rd."  We thought we must  have really made her mad, she had given up, and sent us home.

I thought I was being quite Martha Stewart-ish making my family lasagna and garlic bread while waiting in the hours long line at Antietam.  It took me a minute to realize the strange smell in the motor home was the dirty cutting board I had stashed in the oven when we ran out of water to wash the lunch dishes.  You have to actually open the oven to light it, so this is especially stupid and embarrassing. 

We all agreed that this was the most memorable thing from our trip so far, and not just because of the long wait and bizarre things we had for dinner.  This picture can not begin to do it justice.  The battlefield is lit up with 23,000 luminaries- one for each American casualty during the single bloodiest day of war in American history.   It takes an hour to drive through field after field filled with lights.