Gettysburg and the Start of Spooky Season

What better way to come back from our unexpected hiatus than a blog about Gettysburg and the start of spooky season! As our loyal readers know, we love visiting Gettysburg. Recently we took another trip back.

Lightner Farmhouse B&B

During this trip we stayed at the Lightner Farmhouse B&B. This building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is an 1862 Federal-Style house and is only a couple of miles outside of the Gettysburg National Military Park. Like many homes in the area, the Lightner Farmhouse was used as a hospital during the battle.

The B&B has six rooms available to reserve. Each has their own bathroom, the original hardwood floors and door hardware. New owners have made a few changes to the atmosphere of the Lightner Farmhouse. Each room has been renamed and ties into the history of the battle.

Breakfast is served each morning from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., but there is water, soda and a Keurig available all day. Interested in staying? Visit their website and get booked in for a lovely stay.

A Ticket to the Past

Ticket to the Past is one of the museums we visited on the trip. Created by the Gettysburg Foundation, this museum offers an immersive virtual reality experience. Visitors spend a few minutes in a room learning a little history of the area and the people you will follow in the Virtual reality experience.

Visitors are given instructions on what will happen over the next 20 minutes. You will choose one of three real people to follow on your immersive virtual reality journey. The first ten minutes are spent wearing VR Occulus head gear. A word of warning, if you are easily made motion sick you may not want to do this. Each headset is programmed with the person you have chosen to follow. After this, the group is shown into the next room. Here a video is played, immersing viewers into the world of 1863. After this video, visitors are shown out back to where the trains would have arrived during 1863.

Interested on visiting? Check out the website here.

Gettysburg Heritage Center

This was the second museum we visited. Somehow, we had never made it in here before. This was really a nice museum for a low-ticket price. It only costs $9 for adults. Depending on the showing of the movie, you can either watch the movie first or walk through the museum.

The museum had a lot of great info and some really interesting displays. One display was a witness tree. Some pictures are even 3-D, don’t worry they give you glasses when you buy your tickets.

To view the video, visitors enter the theater. The lights are kept low, but you can see the life size display beneath the seating area. The movie starts and is a video describing the Battle of Gettysburg and the history. During the movie, the lights come up slightly on the figures below. After the movie is over, the lights ramp up, and visitors can take photos.

There was also a gift store, which had a great selection of books. Some even signed by the authors! If you are interested in visiting, their page is here.

Miscellaneous

We didn’t eat anywhere new. We ate at Hoof, Fin and Fowl, The Garryowen Irish Pub, and the Dobbin House Spring Tavern. I covered these three locations in a previous post found here. I did have an amazing drink at the Dobbin House Spring Tavern. It was called “Pumpkin Pie Bourbon Smash”. Basically, it tastes like ‘Fall’ in a glass.

For anyone planning a visit, please keep in mind that many businesses are short staffed. Some restaurants are not taking reservations. I would suggest getting all your ducks in a row and have a backup plan in place.

Some areas of the Battlefield were closed off to visitors. The Little Round Top and Devil’s Den areas have been closed so that they can complete repairs to pathways and address any safety hazards. It is expected to be closed roughly 18 months. To check in on the status, visit the National Parks page here.

Gettysburg and the Start of Spooky Season

Gettysburg is a great place to be at any time of the year, especially the spooky season. While we have had some ghostly encounters at a B&B, we did not have one at the Lightner Farmhouse. There are many haunted locations in and around the town of Gettysburg. You may be luckier than we were.

If you are interested in Ghost Tours, you have many to choose from. We haven’t gone on an official ghost tour in about 10 years, and we haven’t done them all. From the few that we did try, we really enjoyed the Farnsworth House ghost tour.

If ghost tours are your thing, a quick search will turn up all sorts of local ghost tours. Johnstown’s State Theatre is hosting one in October. Find out more info here. And I can’t forget about the Cresson Sanitorium. Learn more about their events here.

Keep checking back for more spooky stories and locations!