March Adventure

4.11.17

My adventure in March was a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. No, I didn't visit the battlefield, though I should put that on the list. I went because there was a MARAC MD/PA caucus meet-up at Gettysburg College, followed by a trip to the Seminary Ridge Museum.

MARAC is the "Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference", the regional archives group of which I'm a member. Logically, I am also part of the Maryland caucus of MARAC. This was my first in-person event having to do with MARAC, and it was on a Friday, which is nice because I have that day off and don't have to use vacation time to go.

Thing is, Gettysburg's a bit of a distance, about an hour and a half drive from my apartment. It's certainly the longest distance I've driven since going to Alexandria and certainly the longest distance I've driven since the drive that ended in my crash. And it was raining on my way there. So that was fun. White-knuckled fun for some parts, but fun. It's nice to see that I am gradually getting over the crash, but it sure takes a lot longer than I'd imagine it would (since it's so so fun to physically flinch when a car comes up too fast behind me, as often happens because this is Maryland).

Anyway, I made it on time to the meet-up and thoroughly enjoyed our backstage tour of the Gettysburg College Special Collections and Archives. Their storage room is SO NICE, and they have four full-time staff and eight student workers and three full-time interns! (Says the lone arranger...)

Then we ate at their specialty dining room, and then met up at the Seminary Ridge Museum. The museum has no items of its own (so everything it has, and it has quite a bit, is all on loan). On some better-weather day I'll go back and pay the extra money for the tour of the Cupola.

I'm still sorting through all the in-depth knowledge I gained about the Battle of Gettysburg from the museum, but the main thing that struck me was how a unit that was a month out from being mustered out lost over 75% of itself just behind the seminary building, basically in the same spot where a parking lot now sits. It's the same sort of feeling I got when we visited Antietam during junior history trip in high school. Not ghosts, per se, but memories.

Memories, of course, are what archivists and historians deal in, I suppose.

Anyway, it was an adventure because

1. it was a place I'd never been to before,
2. it was the longest distance I've driven since the whole car fiasco of late summer/early fall 2015,
3. I met a lot of archives/library people I had never met before (networking?),
4. I learned a lot about the Battle of Gettysburg.

It was a good day.