ROAD TRIP 2008-2009 - Hershey, PA cont...

Today has been another great day on the trip. It is Day 15 and we are still managing pretty well all together in close quarters. Tomorrow we leave and drive home, which will be a welcome part of the trip. It is very nice to get away and see things, but it's even nicer to get home to our warm and cozy home that is ours and get back to normal life. We went this morning to drive on Chocolate Avenue to check it out. We saw the street lights made out of Hershey's kisses that someone told me about. Benjamin noticed that there was a pattern- one silver, one brown. Jon noted that it was a wrapped one and then an unwrapped one- how cute! Hershey's Chocolate World is a fabulous place and of course is totally set up for tourists. We did the Factory Tour in which you ride in a little car and you get taken through the entire process of making chocolate from cocoa beans to store shelves. It was very well done. At the end of the tour, you are handed two pieces of candy (today they gave out Hershey's Bliss pieces). Needless to say, the kids devoured those in about 20 seconds. We did some other things after this tour, but they decided that they wanted to do it again (can you guess why?!) I took them and Jonathan hung back with Zachary, so the boys, Samantha and I all got two more pieces of chocolate, yum! Another thing the kids did was to Create Your Own candy on the factory line. They got little paper hats that said "Factory Worker", lined up at stations, and were instructed to push a button that dropped a couple dozen Hershey's kisses into a container. Then, they took it to another conveyor belt where the container was wrapped. We could have purchased this for $8.95 each, if we so chose (which we did not). They all had a FUN time doing that. Photos will follow once we get home. After this adventure, we drove around looking for a lunch place, even though I had made PB&J's for the kids. We found an adorable little place called the Soda Jerk Diner in Hummelstown, PA. Everything about the place was enchanting- the decor, the friendliness of the servers, the good prices on the menu, and the food itself. I wish I had taken a photo there, but didn't think of it. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to put the littles and me down for a nap. The boys took off to a place called the Indian Caverns which as it turns out, was just down the street from the diner we ate lunch at, about 25 minutes from the hotel. The reports I heard were that it was "AWESOME". Beforehand, when I had mentioned it to the boys as a possibility after lunch, they said that they already saw stalagmites and stalagtites on Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. They wanted to go to the pool/waterslide/arcade again. Jonathan convinced them to go to the Caverns. Benjamin threw a fit and was not happy about going, but he was the one who ended up enjoying it the most, go figure! So, I heard about the Pennsylvania Hermit and the Mystery Box from them, but I am going to have Jon and the boys write more about that later on. At 4:00 we got ready to go to the Pike's for dinner. How wonderful it was to have a nice homecooked Shabbat dinner while on the road! Samantha and Brooke played very nicely together after they warmed up to one another. The boys headed down to the basement pretty soon after we arrived. Dinner was delicious and lovely together. Sorry that Aiya was not with us at her friend's house. Maybe next time. We do plan to come back to this area in the warmer weather sometime. There is SO much to do around here during nice weather that was closed now. I have a memo with a running list on my Palm Pilot. We took some great photos at their house and will post those later too. Now, it's 8:45 and Jon and I might go play mini golf down the hallway. Until we reach MA, night, night!