Antietam and Harper's Ferry, VA

4 September 2013

We wanted to camp away from the city with Tall Son and Whistling Son, so moving on to Little Bennett Regional Park near Clarksburg, Maryland was part of our plan. The park was nearly deserted, and although it's not really out in the sticks by any means, we could still feel like we were doing some real camping. We used Little Bennett as a home base to go see Antietam National Battle Field and Harper's Ferry the first day, and then drove to visit Gettysburg National Military Park each of the two following days.

For us Harper's Ferry was rather a Twilight Zone. The oldest part of the town was almost entirely shut down by the time we were there looking for dinner at 6 p.m. It's an incredibly steep town with tiers of buildings, and lots of steps to climb from street to street. Finally we gave up on the old part of town and found dinner at a good place called the Anvil--cheeseburgers and fries.

Antietam Battlefield

"Bloody Lane" at Antietam

Antietam from the tower

Burnside Bridge at Antietam

The nastiness of the "shutdown" strikes again--I just went to the website for Antietam National Battlefield and found it shut down, too! I can think of no earthly reason to shut down the National Park Service websites except for pure spitefulness.

Harper's Ferry, but it's steeper than it looks in this picture

We wandered inside here to search for dinner, but the sole employee
was overwhelmed, trying to take orders, cook and serve.
I bet the couple seated on the front porch are still waiting.
We fled.