Friday on the move again

Monday we traveled to the Pocono Mountains. Tuesday we rafted the Lehigh River. Wednesday we explored Scranton's rail history (part 2). Thursday we ventured out cautiously in the rain.

Friday morning, fed and packed, we hit the road south to Harrisburg. Destination: the National Civil War Museum. A private museum that opened on the top of a reservoir hill overlooking the state capital in 2001, it claims to be the only one in the country to present an unbiased view of the conflict, its causes, and its human tolls. You can see it was cloudy when we arrived, and it tried to rain on us while we ate a picnic lunch under a tree toward the end of our visit.

This is "Moment of Mercy," depicting a Southern soldier giving water to a fallen Union foe.

Looking north/northeast from the observation deck,

under a large American flag that really needed to be retired due to its frayed edge.

Walk of valor with bricks donated by descendants of combatants; there are not one but two for Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Maine professor who while Colonel held Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg and later became Brigadier General, Governor of Maine, and President of Bowdoin College.

This was a very well done museum, well worth the 2-3 hours TripAdvisor recommends scheduling. In my opinion they tell a pretty conventional narrative, enlivened by a variety of artefacts, dioramas, and especially the personal vignettes from different vantage points (enslaved mother, escaped slave, poor Southern farmer, soldiers and women on both sides) carried through the course of the conflict.

This diorama depicts part of the battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg (September 17, 1862). They also had video of a retired professor from Virginia Tech discussing some of the military history. 

Here are the obligatory food and medicine photos. There was also a thread of placards on African-American experiences you could follow throughout the museum. Most of the interactive exhibits had been removed due to COVID, but I hope those are coming back, not least because many people are vaccinated, and we now know that this virus is rarely transmitted on surfaces. (Which isn't to say that other pathogens aren't, but maybe keep the hand sanitizer dispensers and bring back the flip books and other movable parts.) As it was, I think I was the only person in the museum wearing a mask, as I was not interested in bringing the Delta variant back to the clinic with me.

After all of us had seen everything we wanted to, and checked out the gift shop, we hopped in the car for a short leg to the Amtrak station. The train was late leaving Harrisburg, but we managed to make up most of that time before we reached Pittsburgh. We spent this ride losing the fight with the WiFi and listening to the 20-somethings behind us giggling and discussing their jobs, family secrets, and genealogies. Two more buses and we were home again, home again, jiggety jog, where Rosamunde wondered where we had been all week. It was a really wonderful trip, despite the weather and travel challenges.