Ow...

I hurt.... No more wooden roller coasters for me this year (my neck is killing me). The GF and I went up to Hershey Park on Sunday. Lots of roller coaster goodness, though I had issues after one of the wooden coasters and then this wierd ride that bring you into the sky and then spins you around 2 axises.... After a little recovery time then we went back at it again. We both LOVED the really fast ones. The hanging feet ride, Great Bear was a ton of fun (almost as good as my beloved Volcano down at KD) and we liked it enough to hit it again.. Same with the super fast ride, Storm Runner, was fantastic... I don't think I have ever run into a ride quite like this (this kicks the Hypersonic at KD's ass).. Finished the day up with a funnel cake and (of course) some chocolate. Next on the list is KD.

And to bring further evidence to my whole small world theory. At a bday party for one of my GF's friends I was talking to these two guys about army stuff (since I had just gotten the classic "high and tight" on friday for my battlefield visit on Saturday) and they mentioned this guy that they knew down in NC who was in the guard. Turns out he was in the class ahead of me in OCS (and their resident techie, hence my interaction with them) and when I heard the name I was all "repeat that again?" They even called him later in the night and talked with him for a minute or so.

Staff Ride, Saturday - Never heard of this concept before.... Basically Army officers take field trips to various historical sites and give presentations and review the history. Mine was actually pretty fun, it was given by a retired BG who really knew the history of this battle site that I had never heard of before we started the planning for this event. Cold Harbor was a battle fought almost almost a 150 years ago (June 1864 to be exact) and you can still see the trenches that were in use at the time....

Amazing.. And here I was thinking that Trench Warfare was something that really came into play in WWI whereas it was being done all the way back then. Cold Harbor represented a catastrophic mistake (Gen. Grant is quoted as saying, "Cold Harbor was one of the biggest mistakes that I made", in his memoirs). Almost 7000 casualties in about 39 minutes as the Union Soldiers pressed against deep trenches that the Confederates had spent the better part of 2 days digging before the assault (and that the Union Generals seemed to be oblivious to when they ordered their men into the breach... though the soldiers knew the score, they were placing the names and next of kin on notes attached to the back of their uniforms the night prior to the assault). Tragic.