Pointless Prize: Civil War History

[BicycleBeth]

Thank you everyone for playing the Civil War history game with such enthusiasm! We had 31 people participate and over a dozen regular players. I learned so many new things about the Civil War especially regarding the abolition movement, the Underground Railroad, and how the Civil War and Reconstruction changed Washington City long-term. I loved reading your posts and learning from your cycling adventures. As promised I have Audible “Great Course” prizes for the top 3 Civil War History players.

Congratulations to the winners!

#1 Matt Williams 529 points
#2 Alan Adams 433 points
#3 Cathy Miller 322 points
Honorable Mention: Glenn Glenn/Bikesnick, 194 points

As a reminder, here are the prizes:
The winners will each receive their choice of the following Audible audio books delivered electronically to their email. Check out the options online at Audible

1. The Great Courses: The American Civil War
2. The Great Courses: The History of the United States, 2nd Edition
3. Another Great Course on American history of your choice by one of these professors: Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, or Patrick N. Allitt

To get you your prize, I’ll need your email address and which Great Course you would like. I’ll message you on the forum to get your email address.

[AlanA]

@BicycleBeth 210234 wrote:

Thank you everyone for playing the Civil War history game with such enthusiasm! We had 31 people participate and over a dozen regular players. I learned so many new things about the Civil War especially regarding the abolition movement, the Underground Railroad, and how the Civil War and Reconstruction changed Washington City long-term. I loved reading your posts and learning from your cycling adventures. As promised I have Audible “Great Course” prizes for the top 3 Civil War History players.

Congratulations to the winners!

#1 Matt Williams 529 points
#2 Alan Adams 433 points
#3 Cathy Miller 322 points

As a reminder, here are the prizes:
The winners will each receive their choice of the following Audible audio books delivered electronically to their email. Check out the options online at Audible

1. The Great Courses: The American Civil War
2. The Great Courses: The History of the United States, 2nd Edition
3. Another Great Course on American history of your choice by one of these professors: Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, or Patrick N. Allitt

To get you your prize, I’ll need your email address and which Great Course you would like. I’ll message you on the forum to get your email address.

Beth,

Please feel free to give my prize to the #4 person (or re-rank the prizes). I think the effort and thought put into the street names deserves something. And, plus. I don’t do audio books. I’m always unplugged when I ride my bike, and I have my collection of Grateful Dead for when I’m in the car (I can make it all the way cross country and back on one flash drive!) And, I have two!! Plus an old Ipod with even more!!!

My prize was for learning something and having so much fun finding all the Civil War markers. It was eye opening for me. Although, I’m not sure future riding friends will appreciate all the silly nonsense I spew off (like I did today on my ride with a friend).

I also owe you a silly prize (which I still need to get) for your unofficial first place. I will give it to you some day when we do a ride to Reno Monument!

[BicycleBeth]

@AlanA 210235 wrote:

Beth,

Please feel free to give my prize to the #4 person (or re-rank the prizes). I think the effort and thought put into the street names deserves something. And, plus. I don’t do audio books. I’m always unplugged when I ride my bike, and I have my collection of Grateful Dead for when I’m in the car (I can make it all the way cross country and back on one flash drive!) And, I have two!! Plus an old Ipod with even more!!!

My prize was for learning something and having so much fun finding all the Civil War markers. It was eye opening for me. Although, I’m not sure future riding friends will appreciate all the silly nonsense I spew off (like I did today on my ride with a friend).

I also owe you a silly prize (which I still need to get) for your unofficial first place. I will give it to you some day when we do a ride to Reno Monument!

I love that you’re spewing off Civil War related history tidbits to your riding buddies! I inundate my clients with my Civil War stories and finds. �� And I am pleased to honor bikesnick with a prize for coming in fourth place.

[matteblack]

@AlanA 210235 wrote:

…I’m always unplugged when I ride my bike, and I have my collection of Grateful Dead for when I’m in the car (I can make it all the way cross country and back on one flash drive!) And, I have two!! Plus an old Ipod with even more!!!

As my friends and family are fond of saying “so that’s like one song, right?!?”

True story: We were heading down to OBX and leaving Pierce’s Pitt BBQ in Williamsburg when The Other One came on. The kids wanted to change the station and I told them not until the song was over. We were almost at the NC border when it finally ended (it went into Wharf Rat, which made it impossible to change the station lol).

As for the contest, thanks to Beth for sponsoring it. I learned a lot over the past few months about the Civil War (and finally made it to the Antietam Battlefield, which I’ve been meaning to do for years). I’m fortunate to live near Centreville, where lots of Civil War action took place early on in the war, making it easier for me to consistently get markers and streets. (I actually left both markers and streets on the table and probably have enough left over to get me through the end of March!)

This is my third year doing FS and my second committing to a pointless prize. Like last year (where I focused on the ParkFinder prize), this really opened my routes up and exposed me to a lot more of the area that I typically didn’t ride (such as heading down into Manassas). Hopefully there’s something like this for next year to keep my routes fresh!

Thanks again, Beth!

[matteblack]

…duplicate post…nothing to see here

[AlanA]

@matteblack 210247 wrote:

As my friends and family are fond of saying “so that’s like one song, right?!?”
True story: We were heading down to OBX and leaving Pierce’s Pitt BBQ in Williamsburg when The Other One came on. The kids wanted to change the station and I told them not until the song was over. We were almost at the NC border when it finally ended (it went into Wharf Rat, which made it impossible to change the station lol).
Thanks again, Beth!

That should have been good for about 40-50 miles!! I just hope you turned down Wharf Rat at the proper time. You don’t want your kids picking up any bad words! I had to do that once when my Mom was in the car. She liked the music, but as a Quaker (awesome folks around Civil War time), did not appreciate bad words.

[accordioneur]

@matteblack 210247 wrote:

As my friends and family are fond of saying “so that’s like one song, right?!?”

I remember that when The Golden Road collector’s set came out, one of the late night hosts joked: “The Grateful Dead announced they are putting out a 12 CD set. There’s no word yet on which song it is.”

As someone who plays in a Grateful Dead tribute band, let me tell you it can be hard to practice those really lengthy songs. As a keyboard player, when practicing I fast forward through a lot of guitar solos

[AlanA]

@accordioneur 210271 wrote:

I remember that when The Golden Road collector’s set came out, one of the late night hosts joked: “The Grateful Dead announced they are putting out a 12 CD set. There’s no word yet on which song it is.”

As someone who plays in a Grateful Dead tribute band, let me tell you it can be hard to practice those really lengthy songs. As a keyboard player, when practicing I fast forward through a lot of guitar solos

I’m pretty sure I have seen a Great Northern show. And after looking at your past shows, it would have been at Gypsy Sally’s.

[matteblack]

@accordioneur 210271 wrote:

I remember that when The Golden Road collector’s set came out, one of the late night hosts joked: “The Grateful Dead announced they are putting out a 12 CD set. There’s no word yet on which song it is.”

As someone who plays in a Grateful Dead tribute band, let me tell you it can be hard to practice those really lengthy songs. As a keyboard player, when practicing I fast forward through a lot of guitar solos

That was definitely meme’d about quite a bit: Which song will it be?

Don’t be startled if some random guy approaches you at a gig — that might be me. I’ve not been to Settle Down Easy, but I may have to ride over to catch a show (and a beer or two).

[lordofthemark]

I’d like to thank BicycleBeth for organizing this. This BAFS was my wimpiest since my first, so much had I oriented my riding around my commute, and so discouraged was I by not going to coffee clubs or on group rides (QOTM and I have been particulalry strict about COVID) and not having places to go into to warm up, etc. But the civil war competition kept me interested all winter. I ended up deciding not to focus on Civil war streets and markers in general, but to narrowly focus in on the Civil War markers connected to the fortifications around the capital in particular. I not only learned much about the defenses of Washington, got to see parks and so forth I did not know about but got to ride in places I never would have ventured otherwise (which is the great thing about these kinds of competitions) In particular after exhausting almost all the forts in NoVa south of Rte 50, I ventured into DC and got to ride in places EOTR I had ever ridden, or in some cases, I had never been at all, after living in this area for 28 years.

Congrats to the winners!

[BicycleBeth]

@lordofthemark 210425 wrote:

I’d like to thank BicycleBeth for organizing this. This BAFS was my wimpiest since my first, so much had I oriented my riding around my commute, and so discouraged was I by not going to coffee clubs or on group rides (QOTM and I have been particulalry strict about COVID) and not having places to go into to warm up, etc. But the civil war competition kept me interested all winter. I ended up deciding not to focus on Civil war streets and markers in general, but to narrowly focus in on the Civil War markers connected to the fortifications around the capital in particular. I not only learned much about the defenses of Washington, got to see parks and so forth I did not know about but got to ride in places I never would have ventured otherwise (which is the great thing about these kinds of competitions) In particular after exhausting almost all the forts in NoVa south of Rte 50, I ventured into DC and got to ride in places EOTR I had ever ridden, or in some cases, I had never been at all, after living in this area for 28 years.

Congrats to the winners!

Yay! I’m so glad you learned some new American history and enjoyed the game! Thank you so much for playing.

~Beth

[AlanA]

@lordofthemark 210425 wrote:

I’d like to thank BicycleBeth for organizing this. This BAFS was my wimpiest since my first, so much had I oriented my riding around my commute, and so discouraged was I by not going to coffee clubs or on group rides (QOTM and I have been particulalry strict about COVID) and not having places to go into to warm up, etc. But the civil war competition kept me interested all winter. I ended up deciding not to focus on Civil war streets and markers in general, but to narrowly focus in on the Civil War markers connected to the fortifications around the capital in particular. I not only learned much about the defenses of Washington, got to see parks and so forth I did not know about but got to ride in places I never would have ventured otherwise (which is the great thing about these kinds of competitions) In particular after exhausting almost all the forts in NoVa south of Rte 50, I ventured into DC and got to ride in places EOTR I had ever ridden, or in some cases, I had never been at all, after living in this area for 28 years.

Congrats to the winners!

I agree with you. This was an awesome game to play during Covid times. It was something to do by yourself and just go explore. I invite you to come out to MD someday and explore all the amazing stuff we have. I followed the National Road from Cooksville, MD out to Boonsboro, MD on a bunch of different rides (I got my moneys worth on that road!) It was so much fun, and I learned so much other stuff besides the Civil War. And plus. we have a lot of hills out here!!

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