Taking a Break

For the last 2 days we have been taking a break---from the Civil War!!! For that to happen we had to travel out of Gettysburg. Believe it or not, there are plenty of other sites to see within an hour or so drive from Gettysburg.

Yesterday we drove to Lancaster. There we visited the Lancaster Central Market. This market claims to be the oldest continuously operating farmers market in the country. Market has been held on this site since the 1730's and this building was built in 1889. The posts next to the building are actually hitching posts. Brick sidewalks line the street and the city has built up around this old building.

We always like to check out local markets to see what regional foods might be interesting. Of course, fresh produce is always something we look for and we were not disappointed. Although it is still early summer some of the vegetables looked wonderful. Being near many Amish farms, we expected to find different kinds of meats and cheeses. Some of the vendors gave samples which was fun.
Of course SOME of things for sale were not the kind of food we are interested in.
Is $6.00 for a pig's stomach a bargain???
We did see lots of homemade pastries, candies and jams also. We did manage leave most of them in the market---it wasn't easy!

Today we drove into Baltimore Maryland. There we visited Fort McHenry National Monument. The repulse of a British attack against this fort in 1814 prevented the capture of Baltimore and inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star Spangled Banner".

The fort is built in a star shape of a point of land near the entrance to Baltimore Harbor. The cannon seen here are on the ramparts of the fort looking out over the water.
The cannons had a range of 1 mile and those crafty British ships sat 1 1/2 miles away and bombarded the fort with bombs and rockets. Thus the line in the song" rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air". Fortunately their aim was not very accurate and the attack was unsuccessful. Despite nearly 24 hrs of attack, nearly 1500 bombs and rockets, only 4 men were killed.
The fort was defended by the Maryland militia, a group of local volunteers who really had little or no battle experience. Today, there was a group of re-enactors at the fort. It was neat to see their authentic and colorful uniforms. In addition, they had authentic rifles and were quite knowledgeable regarding the life of a soldier during the War of 1812.

Flying high over the fort is a smaller version of the flag that flew after the Battle of Baltimore. The actual flag that Francis Scott Key saw is now on limited display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. It is much larger than the flag we saw today. Apparently they do fly the larger flag but it was too windy today.


After our visit to Fort McHenry, we stopped in at LP Steamers, a local seafood eatery we read about on the internet. There we had a wonderful lunch cooked by some really nice folks. The fried soft crab sandwich was yummy.
Last but not least we went down to the Inner Harbor waterfront. We drove through Fells Point, a neighborhood established in the early 1700's. The old buildings and cobblestone streets were really neat. We also saw the USS Constellation at anchor. It was the one of the last sailing ships built by the US Navy and was used in --- ( what else??) The Civil War.

After that it was back to Gettysburg--a nice hour's drive through pretty rolling hills.