Labor Day at Gettysburg

We booked a camping spot for Labor Day months ago with some friends.  Unfortunately, out friends had to drop out at the last minute, but we still had the long weekend and went with just our family.  We realized that Cunningham Falls State Park where we were staying in Maryland was really close to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  That had been on our family bucket list for awhile, so we were able to combine lots of fun into one long weekend.  

We did some hiking in the Catoctin Mountains National Park.  We loved the rock formations and mossy boulders.  We felt like we were in a mythical land with fairies and trolls.  We never saw any mythical creatures, but it sure felt like they could pop out at any minute.  We had fun exploring the natural little caves and nocks in the big rocks.  

The kids did the Junior Ranger program in the National Park.  

We spent a day in Gettysburg, immersed in history.  There was a family day at one of the farms in Gettysburg National park.  They had reenactments of soldiers from the battle.  We learned a lot about cannons, cooking, old time medicine, battles and barns.  We learned more about barns than we wanted; a guy that was very enthusiastic about Pennsylvania barns got to talking and we could not escape.  But they had free homemade ice cream, which was amazing! We also enjoyed all the monuments and trails.  We took a really long Ranger led walk.  We learned a lot about the battle, but it was lots of talking and not enough walking.  

We had some rain and some down time.  We had planned on doing swimming in the lake, but it was closed to swimmers due to some algae.  It was too rainy anyway so we didn't feel like we missed out on anything, even though the fact that the camping was on a lake was the main reason we booked this place.  

We went to this cool old covered slide in a little park at a neighboring small town.  You slide down on bags, towels or blankets.  It is pretty big, fast and fun.  The kids were so excited and went down only one time before this other family showed up.  Their kid barfed all over the bottom of the slide as soon as they got there. Since we are in the middle of a pandemic, we wanted to stay clear of sick kids.  They seemed like good people, since they started to clean it up right away.  We shared some cleaning stuff with them and politely waited away from them thinking they would leave after they cleaned up since clearly their kid was sick and there were other people around.  Nope, turns out they were super selfish people.  They stayed at the slide after they cleaned up, even though it was obvious we were waiting for them to leave since they had a sick kid in the middle of the pandemic.  Sometime other people disappoint me with their rudeness.  It was a good learning experience for my kids though.  We left after about a half hour of waiting.  My kids were bummed to not get to use the slide more than once, but we learned that we never want to be like the selfish, rude people that only think of themselves.   I am glad that I am raising kids who think about the needs and feelings of others and not just their own.  

Regardless of the slide fiasco, we had a great weekend.  It was a really fun camping trip and a great week together as a family.