Battlefield Tour: Day One

Our trip leaves out from the seminary in Charlotte, N.C. at 5:30 a.m. Since my father nor I live in Charlotte, we drove there Monday. Monday night, at the seminary, there was a meet and greet dinner for those going on the trip. This gave a few of us a few minutes to get acquainted, and to get an overview for the week's trip. The trips are meticulously planned out by Luther Bigby. He is recently retired from RTS, and lives in Charlotte. Our days were planned to the minute. Dad and I both noticed that at every stop the bus made, Luther was making notes on his itinerary about how long each thing took. They started these trips in the early '90's, and have gotten the tour down to a science. The morning of the first day, July 27, everyone assembled in the parking lot at RTS to load and board the bus. As I stated, there were 42 in the group, as well as Harry, his wife Cindy, and Luther. Time is crucial, and we were loaded and underway at precisely 5:30 a.m. ! We had a couple of hours for some shut-eye, as we stopped for breakfast at 7:30. Jim, our driver, eased us out of Charlotte, heading north on I-77. We took this to I-81, where we headed north through the Shenandoah Valley. Dad and I have each attended these trips before, so we were a little prepared and knew what to expect. Therefore, we made sure that we had seats near the front of the bus. This has a couple of advantages: first, I would be videoing Harry each time he had anything to say and got better shots of him from just a couple of rows behind him; and, it's easier loading and off-loading the bus from the front. Our first stop will be Winchester,VA where Stonewall Jackson had his winter headquarters. We arrived at 12:30 p.m. Here, we had a brief tour inside by volunteer tour guides who work there year round. These guys are very knowledgeable about this wonderfully restored house. Interestingly, this house was restored with the help of Mary Tyler Moore, who is a distant relative of the original owners of the house during the war. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside, but we did get some shots outside.
From here, we boarded the bus and had Arby's on the way to Antietam. We arrived there at 2:30 p.m. We toured the battlefield, Dunker Church, and Burnside Bridge. I will post some photos of this part of the trip, then describe Antietam.