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Mon. May 20th: Gettysburg and A Little Slice of Heaven

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<– Day 16 – Sun. May 19th: On the Road to Gettysburg | Trip Overview | Day 18 – Tues. May 21st: Food and Jeep Rides –>

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Adam, Me and Frank inside the large shop that houses their collections.

On Monday we took full advantage of a lazy morning and didn’t leave the motel until the crack of noon. Our first stop was downtown Gettysburg, where we walked around a bit. I can’t imagine why Lincoln would be so popular around this town!

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2013-5-20-gettysburg-cool-shop-lores Soon, we were hungry, so we stopped at  Hunts Battlefield Fries and Cafe, a place just south of downtown known (according to the internet) for it’s fresh fries and good burgers.

True to our internet source’s information, the fries were good and there were a lot of them! Ann had a grilled ham/cheese/bacon sandwich that she enjoyed. I had a burger with a good bun and tasty meat. They put no extras on the burger . . . maybe I was supposed to ask for them? It was good anyway.

After lunch we drove to the Gettysburg Battlefield National Park Visitor’s Center. It’s a beautiful new structure. While the surrounding park is free, the museum, the cyclorama and the movie at the visitor’s center costs money. We tried all three and liked the movie the best. After the movie we were whisked upstairs to see the cyclorama. We wished they’d explained what a cyclorama was and underscored how old the cyclorama’s painting was before the show began rather than at the end.

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The museum had several groups of school kids completing assignments, so we moved through it rather quickly. It didn’t hit us until near the end of the museum that the different areas of the museum represented each day of the Gettysburg battle. I think it would have been useful to have a sense of nightfall and sunrise as people pass from Day 1 to Day 2 and Day 2 to Day 3.

With the visitor’s center complete, we did a quick tour of the surrounding area:

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After touring the park, we headed over to visit Frank at his home, just a few miles north of Gettysburg. Frank had explained that he had some jeeps for us to see.

Entrusting our visit to Siri (iPhone), I asked her to get me directions to Frank’s house. All was going well until we turned into Frank’s long driveway. At that point, Siri warned us to park the vehicle and walk. Ann and I turned to each other and started cracking up. Apparently, Siri was concerned about our well-being and felt we were too far off the road. We were convinced Siri would start yelling “Danger, Danger” and start assimilating us to force us to turnaround. Eventually, I had enough of Siri’s warnings and shut her down.

We finally found Frank and his son Adam at their shop where they keep their collections. As Ann and I marveled at the beauty of the shop, the surrounding barns, and the rolling landscape, Frank explained that he owned three hundred acres of land. He called it a slice of heaven. We could not argue with that description.

Frank and Adam gave us a tour. As you can see in the pictures, they’ve assembled some great stuff. There jeep collection includes a few original paintings, five military jeeps, toys, models, and a CJ-2A they are restoring. They enjoyed sharing their collection with us and we felt honored to be invited. Here are a few photos.

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Here are a few toys and wall hangings. Frank and Adam happened to have an extra ‘jeep sale’ poster and were kind enough to give me a copy. Thanks guys!

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On Tuesday we drive to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

<– Day 16 – Sun. May 19th: On the Road to Gettysburg | Trip Overview | Day 18 – Tues. May 21: Food and Jeep Rides –>

 

9 Comments on “Mon. May 20th: Gettysburg and A Little Slice of Heaven

  1. Dave

    Gettysburg is only about 40 minutes from me. Wish I’d have known you were gonna be around. Would have liked to treat you to a Lager for lunch. Nice museum. Is it open to the public or strictly private. I’d love to see it. never knew it existed.

  2. Joe Friday

    Based on the watercolor paintings I assume it is Frank Buck?
    That auction was in Michigan a few years ago. There were 4 Sessions paintings sold… for about $2600 each.

  3. Bob

    What a great collection

    When you com back through ill try to see if we can visit the storage facility of the guy with the pink 3b. That’ll blow your mind too!

  4. SE Pennsylvania Steve

    David, I LOVE that war surplus poster!!! Never saw anything like it. I see at the bottom it mentions a CA business reproduced and distributed it. Maybe as a eWillys income producer you could sell copies of it…

  5. mmdeilers Post author

    Yep, that’s Frank’s place.
    Dexter: you are correct. That’s the same jeep.
    Joe: yes he has some Sessions.
    Bob: That sounds like a plan to me.
    Steve: That’s possible. I don’t know who or if anyone has the rights, but Frank thought someone had reproduced some already.
    Dave: It’s private, but they do share it with people on occasion.

  6. mom

    Next time you spiff up our garage perhaps you can use Franks garage as a model and make ours look like that. Glad there are photos for you to follow.

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