Stonewall

I took a lot of pictures today but it seems like they're all of fields. They make sense to me, but as pictures they all become a blur. Here are just the most important photos of the day.

 Burnside Bridge (formerly Rohrbach Bridge, which was also the name of the B&B I stayed in) over Antietam Creek. It's such a serene place and  it's hard to imagine all the death that happened there. It's so quiet and beautiful I would want to spend the whole day just sitting by the creek, but when soldiers were there it had to have been one of the most horrific places to be. This bridge had car traffic until 1966 when they decided to build a new bridge just for cars. One of the things I'm really starting to appreciate about the battlefields is that preserving them keeps places like this--quiet and beautiful. Antietam hasn't really been threatened by growth it seems, but there's a community college almost on top of the Manassas battlefield and a mall a few blocks away. Crazy.

 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson monument at Manassas. He was on this hilltop when he was given his nickname. He's my favorite Confederate, without a doubt. But I'm not entirely sure why.

 Indeed.

So, I tend to miss the funny or unusual signs that people seem to collect on road trips, but this one caught my eye while I was at a stop light. Dual car and dog wash. There was another sign I missed while I was driving through Gettysburg--the battlefield--that was handwritten, stapled to a small post and said "BEWARE OF BEES." There was another one, too, but I've forgotten what it was.

I'm enjoying this whole thing quite a bit. I like driving and then walking and exploring and being in new places and talking to new people. I don't feel lost or rushed, and that's good. As long as I've got a full tank of gas I don't really care what's going on. It's still a little frustrating at the end of each day to have to worry about where to stay. I keep thinking I'll be a certain place by night and ending up a step or two behind. Then I have to figure something new out on the fly and I'm exhausted and don't want to deal with much.

I was going to camp tonight but every Wal-Mart I found was sold out of 2-person tents. A friend suggested going to Dick's Sporting Goods, so I googled the nearest one and it was 20 minutes away and already late so it just didn't seem like something I was up to. I drove to the grocery story to get dinner and on my way back to my super cheap motel room found a Dick's not 3 blocks from where I had been when I googled the nearest one. Absurd! BUYING A TENT SOON! I think I'll be camping while in Tennessee. I also think I'll be getting a storage unit so I can get my stuff out of my car until I figure out the next step. It's so uncomfortable being so crowded! And having to dig for 15 minutes just to get a clean shirt.

Introspection, introspection, introspection. (Sorry I've been too tired to do more of this, I do it mostly while I'm driving and that's the time it's most difficult to type.)

I'm going to bed EARLY tonight, because I look beat and I feel beat and I know I want to try to wake up at 8 tomorrow. Yeesh. I didn't even get up this early for class.
It is so hard to not buy up lots and lots of books every time I go into one of the gift shops.