I promised myself today that I WOULD NOT stay at home glued to TV and internet coverage of the election.  I will check in and watch tonight, but I knew I would go out of my mind if I stayed home riveted all day.  So, I decided I would take Mister Baby Boy and go somewhere, anywhere for the morning.  However, since we are doing that little voluntary spending freeze thing (which sucks big nuggets by the way) I didn’t have a clue where to go.  So I let my camera do the deciding.  I’ve been wanting to go for awhile now, and I thought it fitting that I should visit Saratoga Battlefield today and take some photos of one of the historic places that make a day like today possible. 

To read the history of the Battles of Saratoga, which are considered the turning point of the American Revolution, click here.  It is hard to imagine these peaceful fields being the site of such intense fighting, but the heaviness of that fact palpably weighs on you as you make your way further and further into the park.  The land feels sacred, and I hope my prayers of thanks were heard by those for whom they were intended. 

I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I would have liked to, this being a fairly short drive through tour, but I share these with you in the hopes that they help to connect you to our past as they did me, and help to put this election, which seems all-encompassing, into perspective.

The surrounding woods, still holding on to some color.

Two of the many guns that dot the landscape:

Neilson Farm…This little house sits on top of the hill on Bemis Heights.  It belonged to one John Neilson who joined American troops opposing General Burgoyne’s advance.  The American staff officers used it as their quarters in September 1777.

Another view from the bottom of the hill:

These blue markers delineate the American fortification line on Bemis Heights:

Imagine these fields swarming with weary soldiers:

Memorial Marker:

And a tiny treat as I was driving out—can you see it?

And her little buddy:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ”  -The Declaration of Independence, Congress, July 4, 1776