Hershey, PA

Sunday was a four-state day for use. Don't be too impressed with that though, until after you look at a map of the Virginia / West Virginia / Maryland / Pennsylvania corner of the world. You can hit all four states in, oh, under an hour going in the same direction on one highway. So we did.

We decided we couldn't pass by the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania and all it's associated chocolatey goodness. This morning we went to "Hersheypark" to do a factory tour. I hadn't realized that there was this whole big theme park, including roller coasters, waterslides, 3-D movies, museums, and just about everything else you could think of. I haven't been over the flu for long enough to want to go on a roller coaster, but luckily we didn't have to pay the theme park admission to go on the factory tour of the Hershey plant. Yay, cheap educational stuff!


Remember our Jelly Belly factory tour? Where we saw actual factory workers making actual candy, and learned things about it all? Hershey was altogether something different. The tour was free, but instead of "tour", think "ride". That's right - we got on a car on a little track and it whipped us into the bowels of the Hershey building.

I was expecting an informative discourse on the making of Hershey's milk chocolate, but suddenly, animatronic gospel-singing cows were shrieking at me about how it was "all about the milk". Uh, gotcha.


There were disco balls and movie screens and up-tempo milk themed songs. Our car on it's little train track went hither and thither. A speaker in the car quietly dispensed information that I simply could not follow amidst all the lights and noises as we drove past fake conveyor belts full of candy and chocolate. There was another appearance of the sassy cows, and then it was all over and somebody gave us free chocolate. That's all I remember, I swear.


The Hershey place was actually really cool. The tour was unexpected but hilarious, and the giant gift shop was full of Hershey candy that was cheaper than it normally is. Even the non-candy things, like shirts and kid's toys, were reasonably priced. I was shocked. Mark was quite taken with this here five pound chocolate bar. Too bad we're on a road trip and chocolate melts when left in the car.


Unfortunately, although I wouldn't say I'm still sick from the flu, I would say that I still can't really eat much, so I was unable to gorge on vast quantities of sugar. We had fun, bought a few little things, and headed out of town.