Gettysburg Ride Report

Joni told me during our break that she would like stop at one of the covered bridges to check out the colors. A few miles before Thurmont, you can see all kinds of colors on the hill side. I just couldn’t let this go by without some pictures, so I pulled over for a photo op. We stopped in downtown Thurmont and topped off our gas tanks. Then back on Route 15, we rode a few miles north and turned right onto Roddy road; to the Roddy Road cover bridge. This bridge was built in 1856, and rests just north of Thurmont where Roddy Creek Road meets Roddy Road at Owens Creek. It’s the smallest of the county’s covered bridges. If you would like to see more of the covered bridges of this area, please see ride report of Covered Bridges. We took some pictures, and then headed back to Route 15 towards Gettysburg.

We pulled into Gettysburg around 12:30 and my stomach was saying "feed me." So we went down to Dobbin house; built in 1776 and sits right in front of where Abraham Lincoln delivered “The Gettysburg Address”. They have a really cool restaurant in the basement and the food is really good. But beware - it takes a few minutes for the eyes to adjust to the low lights, but worth it. Since it was lunch time, and this is a very popular place, and the bar was the only seating left. We didn’t want to wait for a table, so be decided to sit at the bar. Hey, we are bikers we don’t need a table ?!!!

After lunch, I wanted to take some pictures of the house; but as soon as someone saw us at our bikes, they wanted our parking space. We hurried so someone else can enjoy the food, plus there was a wedding reception going on as well, which made parking an issue. As we pulled out onto Route 15 and a few blocks up the road, I saw the “55th Ohio Infantry Marker”, when I was up here a month ago, Rosie asked me to check it out, I wasn’t able to find the marker last month, because I didn’t come down this far into Gettysburg. We pulled off onto a side road and walked back for some pictures.

Once we got back to our bikes the brisk Indian Summer morning had turned into a warm Indian Summer afternoon, so we took our heavy jackets off for lighter ones. We headed down towards the Gettysburg auto tour, and stopped at the Pennsylvania battle marker. We climbed up these spiral steps, and as you got close to the top, it was very hard to see the steps -- no windows or lights, but we made it up with out any issues. The view was really great, I wanted to switch to my telephoto lens, and when I took off the back lens protector, and laid it on the edge of the wall the wind grabbed it and blew it down to the outside ledge. I thought, terrific, not far away, but too far without falling and killing myself over a piece of plastic. Joni comes over and I told her what happened to my lens cover. You have to picture this-- here we both are, just looking at it, like we can do something about it ?!!! We took some more pictures and Joni says to me, "go on down and I’ll use my fanny pack to push the lens cover down to you." So I went on down, and Joni pushed the lens cover with her fanny pack to me. The things we do for a piece of plastic ?!!!! Hey, can’t have a ride without some drama, right?

As we were getting ready to leave, a really nice gentleman came over and was asking me about my bike. He told us that he has a bike, I believe from the late 50s or early 60s, where the foot gears are on the left side of the bike and the brake is on the right. We talked for a bit and he wished us a safe trip, and we did the same to him. We headed toward Culp’s hill, where there is a tower to climb for some really cool pictures. To both of our surprise, we made it up to the top ?. You can see some of the cool colors. As we were looking at the parking lot from above, we saw a lady helping her Lab out of her truck. To our surprise here she come’s with her Lab. I think she said he was 10. Of course, I had to go over and give the Lab a good rub on the back, he looked like a very happy guy…

We climbed down and I took a picture of our bikes and the tower in the background. It was going on 3:00 clock and told Joni we should be heading back towards home, since it gets dark at 6:30, didn’t want to be on Route 15 when the deer are out and about. On our ride home we noticed that our warm Indian summer afternoon was starting to turn into a brisk, Indian Summer late afternoon, so we stopped to put away our lighter jackets and pulled out the heavier ones. It was a wonderful day of history, color, and good times, filled with fun and laughter, the only thing missing; ICE CREAM!!!