The Last Full Measure of Devotion

Too much stuff has happened in the past 30+ days to possible recount, so I'll just stick with the past 7 days.

On Wednesday, Cara, her friend Amanda, and I met for lunch/supper a local mall. We had a great time, talking about their recent trip to NYC and the D-tribe meetup there. I've never been to NYC, which is pathetic on so many levels(winter=too cold and summer=too much other stuff to do) but I really wanna go,after reading various people's blogs,etc. We hung out there til it was time for her to catch her plane home. It was cool, talking about Twitter,diabetes,blogs,baseball,theater, it really is true that two type 1's(well,most can,I've met a few that were absolutely not able to be tolerated) can just sit down and have an instant connection. Even without diabetes, there was plenty to talk about. Here's the proof:(yes, Cara, you may steal it + repost on your blog...:-))


The previous weekend, hubby and I went up to Gettysburg. First stop, was the visitor center, where we bought two day passes, ate lunch:


At an actual replica of the Union refreshment saloons in Philadelphia(?) and some other city. They'd serve refreshments,provide the troops with necessities. The replica fire place was really cool:



Then, we perused the gift shop where I gave in to my pin addiction:


and stamped penny addiction. + we bought chocolate, which I bolused for without checking my bg. Went out and listened to a ranger talk, and out to the car. Blood sugar was only 93, with 2.5 units of insulin still on board. Brilliant.(the action of the chocolate and other food long gone) Back to the visitor center, chug a bottle of juice. Go back outside.




(one of the former shell-shocked farmhouses of Gettysburg)


(that's not Robert E.Lee, it's some Union general)
30 minutes later, a mile and a half into nowhere, rechecked bg: 73. Ate remaining glucose(gel, and smartie rolls) and stumble back to the visitor center. Refuel with more juice, go through museum.(partially)

Several hours later, now in the 400's, take corrective bolus, go back to car, drive around looking for food, stop/eat at Friendly's, go to hotel/check in, walk around Gettysburg(shops and such). At night, the streets are abuzz with Ghost tours so all these people are bugging you to go on theirs. Quite frankly, the last think I want to do, the thousands of people that met their gruesome end there makes my blood run cold. We passed on that. Bg remained 150-180 during our several hour walk(not optimal, but better then the extremes). Fell into bed, because on...

Monday it was up and at 'em with a hearty breakfast,mandatory iphone charge-up,and we walked across the street.

(re-enactors, there were tons of "mock" camps set up)

To the wax museum.
Belle Boyd, who shot a Union soldier in her mother's house.



War Council:


I took quite a few pics...just can't include them all here.
And when Lincoln spoke, we sat down and listened.(that is, till my memory card maxed out and I couldn't get the entire thing on video)

Then we went back to the visitor center, where we saw the "Cyclorama" (a huge circular famous painting) complete with flashing lights, battle booms, and screaming infant. It was quite the experience.
(a soldier's 50 lb pack of gear,that you could try and lift. Which was ok for about 1 minute and then you begun to understand why they chucked as much as possible over the course of a 25+ mile day's march)

One soldier's "coldpack" for under his cap:

Big guns:

finished the museum, ate lunch, and on the driving tour, got about half way into that.
Eternal Flame: (dedicated in 1933 by FDR and over 100 veterans came to the dedication, these were people in their NINETY'S which is pretty amazing if you ask me)

Was getting late, so decided to finish another time. Ate at a DQ, overbolused and 30 min. later I was dropping like a rock so had to consume even more carbs(juice,lots of glucose tabs) Was so stuffed I couldn't eat another carb.(next step would have been glucagon)

At Gettysburg, there were over 51,000 casualties and 3,000 deaths. Of Pickett's Charge, about half of the 6,000 troops were killed or wounded. People lay on the ground, dying of thirst, dying of their wounds, dying of being drowned because someone else had fallen on them and they were too weak to shove 'em off(and it rained hard after the battle). It was very tragic. The stench of rotting corpses pervaded the area for months, even after hasty, en masse trench burials. It wasn't a very glorious site. Brothers fought against brothers, fathers against sons.(Lincoln had 3 brothers in law who fought for the Confederacy) Standing in that place where one side of the ancestral family tree(the Pennsylvanian half) tried to annihilate the other(Virginian) half brought that to greater understanding. Fortuantly, that didn't happen, my great-great grandfather survived Pickett's Charge(or I wouldn't be here today).And likewise, the Northern ancestor(s) survived as well.
Also walked through the National Cemetary:

a fitting thing to do on Memorial day.(paying tribute to everyone who died there) 10 years after the war, the Southerners had all their dead dug up and shipped home to be buried in the South so there are only Union graves. Didn't have time for the bus tour, or to finish the audio tour, or the other ranger talks at various points. Too much to do, too little time. What we did do was fun, though.

(pretty sure the tennis shoes gave their last full measure too,a sole is worn through on one of them and its time to get another pair)