Lincoln Highway in PA

Lincoln Highway round-a-bout in Gettysburg

Once we departed the interstate for the Flight 93 memorial and knew that ultimately we would be back on U.S. 30 to go to Gettysburg, it seemed that the quickest route between two points would be to stay on U.S. 30....or the old Lincoln Highway. So, we drove the Lincoln from Stoystown north of Somerset to Gettysburg, PA. I figure we drove about half the length of the Lincoln through Pennsylvania.

And I'm pretty certain that the guys were tired of me saying..."wow, hey, look at that old gas station!" and "do you see that? Do you see the old tourist cabins?". There was some great stuff along the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania including the beautiful cities of Chambersburg and Gettysburg that were illuminated with rows of flowering trees through their downtowns.

It was this Gulf station that caught my eye with its terra-cotta construction....it was the only thing I insisted we stop and take a picture of. Well, not the only thing. You see, we passed a Starbucks in Chambersburg on the way to the state park in which we planned to camp. When we woke up Saturday morning to near 30 degree temps, I insisted we go back to Starbucks for a warm up. On the way back to the campsite we passed a sign for the Appalachian Trail. The AT? How cool that it crossed the Lincoln Highway within a few hundred feet of where we were camping. So, here again I pulled over and made Dave take this picture.

The AT and I go back several years to a backpacking trip on the trail in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. That was a great trip, despite the cold of March in the mountains and the fact that I was ill-prepared physically to make the trek. The photo shows the highest elevation of the AT in Shenandoah......and us trying to purify some pretty rank water because we were already out one day into the trip.

Me, Krazy & Sean on the AT in 1997

I wasn't expecting Gettysburg to be such a beautiful city. The town was laid out around a courthouse square, but the courthouse moved very early to its current location, just south of the square and the square in turn developed a round-a-bout with the LH running through it. The city was a bustling place and very well maintained. It must be one of the gems of the Lincoln Highway.

the "new" courthouse in Gettysburg

the Pub Tavern on the Square (center)

While I couldn't convince the guys to eat at the Lincoln Diner....a very authentic sorta place....we did eat at the Pub Tavern on the square and the burgers and homemade chips were excellent.