Woke up around 8 am and had a final breakfast at the lodge, the clouds still hung over the mountains and the lodge but a little less than yesterday. Rain still fell from the trees but not from the sky but I was still looking forward to get away from the mountains and back to sunshine and warmth.
After breakfast l loaded my car and headed north along the skyline drive stopping along the way to see the panoramas as the clouds cleared as the day progressed. At one point as I turned a corner a juvenile bear was about to cross the road but as he saw me approaching he ran back into the trees for cover. It was the first time I had seen a bear in the wild, I thought I would be frightened but I wasn’t. I guess it was because I was safe in my car. It took me around 2 hours to exit the national park. My route took me a short distance along the iconic Route 66 west until I joined interstate 81 north taking me to Gettysburg.
The battlefield at Gettysburg is spread other a trail some 25 miles long so I headed straight to the visitor centre and watched an introductory film explaining the causes of the civil war between the confederates and the Unionists, and the famous high water mark battle at Gettysburg between 1st and 3rd July 1863. I then visited the place where Abe Lincoln gave his famous speech after the battle. I then visited the site of the final confederate attack on 3rd July 1863 that was finally defeated by the Unionist and was a turning point in the civil war. It was now pm and the battlefields were closing so I headed to the Comfort Inn hotel on Baltimore Street for my bed for the night. This turned out to right next to the cemetery whose Lincoln gave his address that I visited earlier.