Bridges at Harpers Ferry

[Adsos Letter]

Bridges at Harpers Ferry

[elleng]

1. Nice!

Looks like I should visit.

[Adsos Letter]

2. Have you been?

I don't think it is too awfully far from you.

I took this from the deck of an Airbnb which I can heartily recommend.

[elleng]

3. No, I've never been,

and it's only about 60 miles from my DC suburban friend's home, 125 from my southern MD home.

[Adsos Letter]

4. It's lovely around there.

Despite the number of trips I've made to the East Coast the lushness never ceases to impress me.

We stayed there while on a trip to Antietam. Lots of history in that town, site of John Brown's raid, etc..

I recommend the trip!

[elleng]

6. Will do Harper's Ferry.

Lived near Antietam for a few years, and yes, it's very lush around here (and there.)

[k8conant]

5. That's right downtown Harpers Ferry!

I live 10 miles from there on the Blue Ridge and my mailing address is Harpers Ferry.

[Adsos Letter]

7. My vantage point was directly below the ruins of St. John's Episcopal Church.

Stayed in a great Airbnb there, run by a couple who foster rescues.

I am always amazed at how incredibly beautiful it is around there. We were there at the end of July, 2018, and it was green and lovely (unlike my part of California at that time of year).

[k8conant]

8. I'm waiting for the spring again!

[tymorial]

9. Nice photo. I love Harpers Ferry

One of my favorite memories as a kid was my mom taking me there. She was a history teacher and civil war expert. I remember her telling me about John Brown as we walked around .

[Adsos Letter]

10. My mom was also a History teacher who enjoyed studying the Civil War.

She instilled me with a love of History in general from a young age. Had me reading Bruce Catton's writings when I was a young kid. I went on to earn both BA and MA in History, largely because of her influence.

John Brown; Herman Melville referred to him as The Meteor of the War.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. Wonderful bridges, my dear Adsos Letter!

I too marvel at how green everything is back East! So unlike our California.

And look at all the water in the river!

[Adsos Letter]

12. Thanks, Peggy!

Yeah, we're usually on fire that time of year.

We flew back for a long weekend at the end of July, last year. The weather had been extra wet that summer (lots of water for the rivers) and had been raining pretty continuously for days until the evening that we arrived at Dulles. The next three days were beautiful; sunny, warm, humidity wasn't horrible. The night we flew out it started raining again.

Perfect timing.

[Callalily]

13. What a beautiful landscape!

I wouldn't mind visiting.

[Adsos Letter]

14. Don't know what part of the country you're in...

...but it’s certainly worth the trip, especially if you’re into the history of the US.

[packman]

15. Ronald Reagan led the raid - Guess Trump was too busy

?t=427

Santa Fa Trail 1940

[tclambert]

16. Your forgetting his bone spurs.

You know, the bone spurs he can't remember. So he would have had to stay home fighting his own war against STDs.

(Added: I just looked up the cast. Reagan played George Armstrong Custer! Errol Flynn played JEB Stuart. Raymond Massey played John Brown.)

[3Hotdogs]

17. Go there. National Park Service site. But be careful with G.P.S. directions.

I got to a street and there was a sign on the street about not following G.P.S. directions. The sign is correct.

[mnhtnbb]

18. That takes me back

We stopped at Harper's Ferry when we were on a driving trip to see Civil War battlefields from Gettysburg on south when I was pregnant with our oldest. 1986. Ended up in Atlanta. We started out (from L.A.) intending to fly to Austria and then see Italy. It was right after Reagan bombed Tripoli and there were all kinds of protests going on in Europe. I had very bad feelings about the trip (not speaking German or Italian) and not wanting to be identified as Americans. There had been a woman--pregnant--whose boyfriend had put her on a plane at Heathrow and planted a bomb in her carry on. I told my husband, that's it, I'm not going so we got off the plane at JFK and didn't take the connecting flight to Europe. Came up with the Civil War battlefield trip instead so we'd still end up in Atlanta for a reunion with his family as originally planned.

Fascinating history.

Turned out my intuition served me well. We later found out that we would have been in Vienna when Chernobyl blew and due to winds I would have gotten a huge dose of radiation (5 months pregnant) and been worrying for the rest of my pregnancy.