My Musings: Our Fourth of July

We decided to head out today to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield today. It's a Civil War Battlefield north of Atlanta where the Army of Tennesee tried to hold off General Sherman's troops (I think native Atlantans still spit after they say Sherman's name). You can go up to the top of the mountain, and there a miles of trails to walk. Not that we did. My stroller does not go off-road. Here's what it looks like from the top of the mountain. The sign said on a clear day you could see all the way to Stone Mountain (28 miles away). It was too smoggy today. I want to come back in the fall. Can you imagine this view with the fall colors?

Here are Matthew and Nathan in front of one of the cannons. Nathan was a little afraid that the cannon might actually shoot at him. We told him that he was pretty safe since that cannon probably hadn't shot off anything in over 100 years.

After coming back down from Kennesaw mountain, we took a driving tour through the National Park to see a couple of other sites from the battle. The best one was Cheatham Hill where you could actually see some of the earthworks the Confederate soldiers built during the battle. Here's a marker showing where one Union soldier was buried. Don't worry, he's not there anymore. Most of the soldiers buried on the battlefield were later re-buried in Marietta National Cemetary.

There are also monuments set up by various states around the battlefield commerating their soldiers service to the war. Here is the one from Illinois, the most famous one in the park.

I looked for one from Indiana, but I didn't find one. However, knowing my state, it was probably placed somewhere very flat!

We did have to buy something at the gift shop, but since we didn't have to pay an entrance fee and the shuttle bus up the mountain cost us a total of $5, I figured we could afford it. Here's Nathan with his own little Civil War battle.

And to finish off, just some random pictures including one of Nathan looking at a map (big surprise) and Andrew hanging out in the stroller. He was such a good traveler. He didn't really get to nap at all while we were at the park, and even on the way home he was playing with his toys and singing.