Friday, September 18, 2009

Little Buddy At Harpers Ferry

I have a new riding buddy.

I made the mistake of peering into the 10 cent stuffed animal box in the second-hand shop in Berkeley Springs and Little Buddy was looking up at me waving and, saying "Pick me. Pick me. I love to ride."

He already had his own helmet, and he had this winning smile on his face, so I pulled him out of the box, paid the sales person the 10 cent ransom fee and rescued Little Buddy from a life of boredom trapped in a cardboard box and set him free on a life of adventure riding shotgun on Zoom Zoom, looking backward at where we've been and waving happily at everyone he sees.


We immediately set off on a tour of civil war battle fields and historical sites. Our first stop was Antietam National Battlefield, the site of the single most bloodiest day of the Civil War, when about 23,000 men were killed or wounded during the 12 hour battle of Sept 17, 1862. Little Buddy was very saddened to hear of this useless slaughter of good men. He paid tribute by visiting several of the battle scenes and the lookout tower that now allows us to observe most of the battle site at one time.






After our tour of Antietam, we rode over to Harper's Ferry where Abolitionist, John Brown, staged his insurrectionist raid on the federal armory in October, 1859. Little Buddy was interested that Meriwether Lewis relied on Harpers Ferry for most of the provisions for his great transcontinental expedition of 1803.


But he was even more interested in the offerings of White's Tavern.



After an exhausting day of touring battlegrounds, we repaired to Shepherdstown, WV for an evening of good food, drink, and music. Tomorrow, it's off again on another adventure.

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