For a 4 state day, this was a really short trip. We started at home in Pennsylvania then skipped through Maryland, popped into Virginia for just a few miles, and stopped at Harpers Ferry just across the next border into West Virginia – and all in under an hour and a half each way!  The kids have taken to cheering when we enter a new state so they were cheering away most of the trip.

Harpers Ferry was an excellent National Park and offered a lot more than we’d expected.  (I *really* wish the Park Service would put more information on their webpages and make it all easier to find! It’s really hard to tell what you’ll find on almost any National Park because their websites are near impossible to navigate…)

In any case, the park was great.  We were expecting the details on John Brown and his ill-fated attempt to incite a slave revolt after capturing the armory…..

But we weren’t aware of the role the armory played in the introduction of Interchangeable Parts by Capt. Hall in the rifle factory, pretty much making the industrial revolution possible.  (Assembly lines only work with interchangeable parts.)

We also weren’t aware of how lively this area was during the Civil War. It actually changed hands 8 times.  Not surprising given the location. This is a photo I took on the battlefield at Harpers Ferry.  The hills you see from left to right are in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. It makes you realize just how close to the border the town was.

Overall it was a great day. We’ll probably return at some point because even after a full day, we hadn’t seen everything.