We intentionally made this a shorter day so that we would have time to tour Antietam battlefield and Harpers Ferry. Antietam is only about 6 miles from Shepherdstown, so we arrived mid morning after a lazy start.
We started at the visitors center to get an overview of the battlefield and events of that dreadful day when over 100,000 troops clashed and nearly 23,000 men were counted as casualties. Think of that: 23,000 men died or seriously injured as a result of a single day’s battle. It is a very somber place to be. It seems so serene and peaceful today. The visitors center has a very good movie and then the park ranger gave an excellent orientation – each about 30 minutes. I found myself really thinking about how so many human lives were lost. How do we measure the cost of those lost to slavery and its many injustices? How do we measure the cost of those lost to the war? I’m sure it made our Lord very sad to see how we treated our sisters and brothers, and still do in many ways.
The battlefield is not very large when you consider 100,000 troops were in the battle. I imagine it was quite full of people. There is an 8 mile loop that you can drive around the perimeter and down a couple of roads within the battlefield. Along the way there are stops to read various details about the battle. It is the blue route in the map below. We rode our bikes around the loop and stopped a few times to see the details. There are many monuments along the route built to the various battalions that were involved.
It was getting warm and we were ready for lunch, so after completing the loop, we stopped for lunch before heading back to the C&O Canal path and resuming our journey. We arrived at the bridge to Harpers Ferry by late afternoon. We locked up the bikes and walked across into town. We wandered a little while and found a little ice cream shop to get out of the sun. We also found a really neat little shop that has lots of things to support the hikers that are coming through on the Appalachian Trail. We popped in and bought a few Clif bars for our breakfast tomorrow.
After returning to our bikes, we made the last few miles to arrive in Brunswick MD for the night. After getting cleaned up, we all ordered the same thing for dinner: spaghetti and meatballs. It was filling and yummy.
I had my second run-in with the cleat of my right shoe today when riding at Antietam. It was a very good thing I bought spares in Hancock. My right cleat lost a screw and it would have been very difficult to finish the tour without that cleat working. In less than 5 minutes, I had the new cleat mounted and resumed the trip. So, in case you’re wondering, yes, I will always pack a spare cleat or two in my repair kit!
Tomorrow we have a tight schedule. We need to arrive for a 4PM Amtrak back to Pittsburgh. We have 60 miles to go and are conservatively estimating 6 hours at 10 MPH. We talked it over and we’d like to get to the Washington mall as early as possible and then have the time to look around a little. That way, if we have any issues along the way, we have buffer time.
Time to head to bed. It’s going to be an early morning!
Stats for today: 35 miles, +1 cleat replacement, no other issues.
May the Lord shine His face upon you and give you peace.
— Dcn. Matt
Deacon Matt's Blog 