October 28, 2004Wed Oct 20: We got up early and had breakfast and headed down to the Hershey Zoo/Chocolate factory.
WOW! Fresh chocolate smell everywhere! We did the Hershey Chocolate Factory tour. It was cool-they had me transfer into a manual wheelchair and pushed me into a little gondola-ride-thingy modified to take chairs. Suz sat directly behind me. It was neat-shows how you the chocolate is refined and shaped, etc.
Then we were asked if we wanted to "be on the line packing some Kisses". Sure-why not. It was real hokey. Some really-overenthusiastic guy with a hokey hard-hat/microphone combo had you push a button on a mock conveyor belt where a batch of Kisses came down and you had to box them. Then they have to be "inspected" and "sent off with a Kiss"....hokey...but kids would probably love it.
Then we went into their store-gads and gads of fresh-from-factory chocolate! Dark Truffle Peppermint Patties, White Chocolate Mint Kit-Kats! (happy sigh). We bought presents for everyone and ourselves. Then we went and had the most-chocolatey cups of Starbucks' Hot Chocolate we've ever had.
Hershey Zoo was next....didn't overly impress us but it was ok. Definitely not bigger than our hometown Seneca Park Zoo. Saw a trio of Bison which stank to high hell. Not a bad lil zoo. Frustrating part was every school in the county had kids there so we were constantly dodging throngs of screaming children.
We went back to the hotel and cleaned up before meeting the Fran Clan for dinner at the Applebee's next door. Always enjoy a chance to chill with my homeys.
Returned to the hotel and swam and dozed to CSI.
Thurs Oct 21: MALL DAY WITH FRAN! Not-my-President-Bush was having a campaign rally right up the road at the Hershey Giant Stadium so we wanted out of Dodge. We left Hershey about 9am and got to Lancaster at 9:45. Picked up Fran and we went to a restaurant called Carmine's where we had our first Authentic Philly Cheesesteak and loved it!
Then we went to the King of Prussia Mall which is a city amongst itself--4 separate quadrants. It makes our Eastview Mall look damn small.
Then we went swimming with the family we met and had dinner with them.
Friday Oct 22: We got up about 9-had dinner with the family we'd met and said our goodbyes. Little Sammy still called me "Shark Boy"...eh, whatdya gonna do?
We headed out by 10am and made it home by 5pm exactly with no incidents.
Posted by pboulay at October 28, 2004 05:41 PM