Real Busy Lately!

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since the middle of the summer! That's what having children will do to you. Thomas and Patrick were born on August 17 at 1 PM, so things have been a little crazy over the last month or so. I will try to stay on top this blog as best I can.

Summer 2007

Working the day to day operations of the GoG this year has been interesting to say the least. Very repetitive. Very repetitive. Very repetitive...Sorry, got stuck there. I met a ton of nice folks from all over the world. Meeting people from everywhere is one of the nicer benefits of working in a tourist town. I love finding out what brings people to visit Gettysburg. The history, the scenery of the area and the battlefield, and ghost tours of course! All biggies. But I met a guy last night who was from San Diego and always loved history and this was his first visit to Gettysburg. He was amazed at the size of the battle and how large the battlefield here. He just wanted to know more and I told him that his questions will be endless, for even those of us that think we know a thing or two about the battle, the more you look into it, the less you know. But driving home last night I realized something.

Their basic curiosity about Gettysburg gets them here, the magnitude of it brings them back.

I guess that's how I got here too. I never really thought about it like that until last night. Oh and about last night.

September 17, 2007 Baltimore St

It was a really nice night for a walk. Almost no humidity, no breeze, and about 55 degrees at 8PM. 16 people came along for the downtown walk. This was a interesting group as they were from San Diego, Chicago, Iowa, Ohio, NJ, and Connecticut. Town was quiet and nothing overly exciting happened on the tour. We all had some fun and then I did it again.

At 9:45 the folks from Wyndham Worldwide came for a tour. I have forgotten how tough it is to do two of the same tour back to back. These people were from all over the world as one man was from Australia and another from Holland. These people were managers of big hotels and I could tell that they were some pretty important people within their own circles, but they were networking and talking shop in between stories. They didn't interrupt me at all, but walking between stops they were all business. That's some hardcore time management and efficiency skills.

Storyteller's Rant: I am almost at the point where I am going to throw somebody out of the office soon. I can not understand how people can not make up their minds about what tour to go on. If given a choice, most people hem and haw over which tour is the best? What tour has the most activity? Which tour has more ghosts? All dumb questions. I have to be honest about this people, when you ask me one of those questions my blood pressure goes up. All the tours have ghosts, if they didn't we wouldn't do the tour. Which tour is the scariest? That is subjective, it depends on who you ask. Just pick one and let your imagination do the rest. Am I guaranteed to see a ghost? I f I could guarantee that we would charge a lot more for tickets. Just pick a tour!

Seriously, pick a tour based on the time it begins. Other than that just relax and have fun. I have seen people leave the office, get into fights with each other and me, and not wind up going on a tour because they couldn't pick one. You are not buying a house, it is not a life or death situation, just pick one! Please for my sanity!

Haunt you later...

"Rick Saunders"