Day 12 – Hershey, PA

I’m writing this post tonight with a headache induced by a chocolate intoxication, which doesn’t really seem like a bad thing. This morning we woke up and started packing up to move on to Hershey, PA. Our campground in D.C. was really nice, I would recommend it to anyone. It had everything you would think a campground should have plus so much more… a ridiculous amount of washing machines and dryers, cafe, huge swimming pool, huge kiddie pool play area, huge dog walking area, free shuttles into Union Station, shade, and many large clean bathhouses.20130811-205948.jpg
We didn’t really have any shade, but other people did and I didn’t want to ask to move because we weren’t staying very long.20130811-210142.jpg
Groups of campers from around the country we here too. I thought it was funny to see, it must have been college groups or something similar because they were piled into the same type of van we used at UNO to travel to other states, but they all had the same tent it was crazy. Maybe they had a sponsor, or just more money for the program than we did.20130811-210724.jpg
There is a beautiful bed of flowers in front of every bathhouse.
Now, we’re moving on out…(singing it)
Only a 2 hour drive to our next campground. On the way, of course we had to stop at the rest area to take a picture.20130811-211142.jpg20130811-211236.jpg20130811-211256.jpg
They have really pretty flowers at the PA rest stop.
We raced over to the campground to unhitch, eat lunch, and walk Roux. Then it was on the Chocolate Town!20130811-211622.jpg
There is free parking if you’re only going to the Chocolate World and not the Amusement Park. So we parked for free, yippee! An then took a trolley to the entrance.20130811-211956.jpg
I was so excited to be here! I love chocolate!20130811-212207.jpg<a
You can buy a whole lotta candy here man! Reviewers on tripadvisor said that they had really good deals on candy, but it's not true. Unless, the candy where they live is more expensive, I don't know. We bought hershey bars for smores then went to the grocery store for hotdog bun and they were cheaper there. Maybe it's different on bulk items. They also said that the chocolate tastes better, and Jacob and I both agree on that one. It must be because its made so close then sold quickly. You never know how long the stuff at wally-world or a local grocery back home has been on the shelf.20130811-213427.jpg20130811-213435.jpg20130811-213443.jpg
YUMMY!

We bought the chocolate enthusiast tickets which included, 4-D movie, trolley tour of the city, chocolate tasters class, make your own candy bar lab, and a free ride on the history of hershey chocolate.20130811-213930.jpg
Wanting for the 4-D experience to start. This was similar to Disney’s Bug’s Life in the Animal Kingdom. They have nothing on Disney though, this movie wasn’t great. What was great was all the children in the movie! The staff members got a few kids to participate in the movie it was ADORABLE! At the end they give you chocolate! Next, our class on tasting. 20130811-214418.jpg20130811-214528.jpg20130811-214600.jpg20130811-214613.jpg
Our “teacher” spoke really fast, like he had an exact amount of time to get everything in and he was already running late, it came out all mumbly to me. I did really like tasting the chocolate, it made me happy and forget about the fast talking for a bit. The five types on the paper above are the ones we had.20130811-215016.jpg
Next, the history of Hershey chocolate ride. This was a little bit cheesy with cows sing, but I liked it and I think kids would too. They tell you all about the production of chocolate from start to finish and show you what the machinery looks like behind the scenes. 20130811-215317.jpg20130811-215326.jpg20130811-215340.jpg20130811-215348.jpg20130811-215403.jpg20130811-215436.jpg20130811-215443.jpg20130811-215451.jpg20130811-215501.jpg20130811-215523.jpg
And they give you chocolate at the end!
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This is what the trash cans look like here.
Next we boarded the trolley to tour the town of Hershey.20130811-220031.jpg
On this 45 minute ride, there are 2 conductors would tell you about how Mr. Hershey started his empire and what has happened with everything when he passed. 20130811-220332.jpg
Oh, and they sing…it was cute and informative. We enjoyed learning about how this man, who went bankrupt in the beginning, became a household name with the Largest Chocolate Factory in the World! That’s pretty amazing!

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There is a big food court with a bakery.
The last thing we did here was make our very own candy bar. They make you get all dressed up like you’re really going to be making something. Unfortunately, everything is complete done with machines. It’s cool to watch though.20130811-221052.jpg20130811-221121.jpg
The first thing you do is choose what type of chocolate you want and what you want to be inside on a computer.20130811-221303.jpg
This is my “OMG it smells like chocolate in here!” face.20130811-221421.jpg
“I’ve got the golden ticket!” All you candy info is programed on this ticket. You just scan it and watch the magic happen.20130811-221627.jpg
Jacob chose white chocolate.20130811-221718.jpg
The fillings get added. He had pretzels, almonds, and chocolate chips.20130811-221913.jpg20130811-221929.jpg20130811-221942.jpg
While you wait for it to cool, you get to design your chocolate bar wrapper.

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There is a laser that prints the name on each of the boxes, lightening fast.

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Voila! It’s done.
Like I said before, we bought some hershey bars to make s’mores after dinner then stopped to get some buns.
Back at the campground, Jacob made a really good fire. We have been having horrible luck with wet wood at every campground and our fires have been giving us a rough time. Well, tonight he did me proud with some dry wood. We were enjoying our dinner waiting for the night sky to roll in when, wouldn’t ya know, it starts freaking raining! We sat in the rain until our hotdogs were ready to eat and even ate them in the rain. We’ll try again tomorrow night with the s’mores. We had enough candy today, who needs s’mores after that anyway! On to Philly tomorrow. But first, I forgot to include few pictures. The street light are capped with kisses in town.

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20130813-100640.jpg The “Largest Chocolate Factory in the World!”

20130813-100740.jpg The suns rays shining through the clouds.

Day 10 and 11 – The Sights of Washington DC

Hi there…we decided to combine 2 days of blogging because on the second day, we weren’t able to get many pictures, more on that later.

On day 10, the alarm clock went off at 6 am, I know alarm clock on vacation, not cool! We caught a Grey Lines tour bus in the park at 6:55. This bus took us into Union Station in DC. Union Station had some construction going on, but it was still a beautiful old building, built around the turn of the 20th century. The station services multiple train and bus lines it was busy at 8 am in the morning.
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The first tour bus left union station at 9, so we had an hour to kill. We walked around the area and found a nice park to hang out in. We learned on the tour that DC has the most variety of planted trees, shrubs, and flowers of any nations capital in the World!
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We found Louisiana Avenue close by too..
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The tour bus finally pulled up. These tour buses are cool, they’re a double stack bus. You have the option to sit inside the cold AC or sit on top and see the sights and sounds…we decided the top was for us because we’ve never ridden on a double decker bus, cool!
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We had a great tour guide on the bus, he was a local student at Georgetown and was very knowledgable about DC. Of to the tour..
First stop was the capitol building. It is actually the tallest building in the mall area. It was designed like this on purpose, lady freedom (who weighs 15,000 lbs) resides on top of the dome. She looks down on everything, so nothing “will overcome liberty”..
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Across the capital building is a lake, you can see the Washington Monument in the distance..
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Next area we toured by bus was the Smithsonian museums. A total of 500 million dollars was willed to America by Mr. Smithson to stimulate arts and science. There is a dozen or so Smithsonian museums, way to many visit over 2 days. The pic below is of the Smithsonian Castle, Mr. Smithson is buried there..
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Next stop was the Washington Monument. It was actually under repair from a small magnitude earthquake that occurred last year. Even with the scaffolding around it, it was still pretty amazing up close..
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We drove around the mall and saw the Jefferson Monument. Jefferson had a ton of influence on the building and construction of Washington DC.
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We drove a bit and stopped in front of the White House, this was as close as we got to the White House. Tours are actually on hold because of the government debt problems. I visited Washington DC in eighth grade and we were able to tour the White House. I felt bad for all the other children tour groups that weren’t able to tour because of our politicians lack of fiscal responsiblity. Ok, Im done, Im off my soap box..
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We passed by Ford’s Theater, the place President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth..
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We got off of the tour bus, it’s a hop on hop off bus and toured the war memorial area on foot. Our first stop was the World War II memorial.
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There was a display in the memorial where stars were mounted for every 100 lives lost in the war..
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The columns around memorial had each of the states. This represented the home state of military personnel…here’s Louisiana..
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Next memorial was the Korean Memorial. This memorial consisted of statues of soldiers walking through the memorial. On the marble walls, actual pictures were etched into the wall..

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Next stop was the Lincoln Memorial. It’s huge. Lincoln sits approximately 19ft tall. Inside of the memorial is some of his most famous speeches..

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Next, we stopped at the Vietnam Memorial. The memorial consisted of statues and the names of the fallen soldiers etched in marble.

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We decided to get back on the tour bus to take it to other monuments. While waiting, we found the Einstein Statue. There’s a saying that if you rub his nose, you inherent intelligence. I made my lovely wife rub it 😀

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We returned to the tour bus and first stop was Arlington Cemetery. The Cemetery did a great job at remembering our fallen. We walked through the cemetery and observed the Changing of the Guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The respect that is payed to the unknown soldiers is amazing. The tomb says “Here lies in honored glory an American Soldier known but to God”, very powerful..

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We boarded the bus again and headed to the pentagon. On the way, we saw the Airforce memorial. It symbolizes fighter jets flying vertically out of a pattern. Those that have seen the Blue Angels should be able to relate..

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We couldn’t take pictures of the pentagon. Since 9/11, they’ve constructed a memorial consisting of benches. Each bench represents a person who died. Benches facing the pentagon represent the people who were in the pentagon that day and benches facing the southwest represent the people that aboard the plane that crashed into the pentagon.
We decided we wanted more foot touring so we decided to explore the Smithsonian American History Museum. This museum was very cool, it had alot of memorabilia from the olden (and newer) days…even Archie Bunker’s chair!

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The next part of the museum was the develop of food technology from 1950 to 2000s. They even had Julia Childs full kitchen..

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The next section was dedicated to automobile transportation. Plenty of old cars and even an old Camper!

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The main section contained a dedication to the American Flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner. Due to the delicate flag, it was over 200 years old, we couldn’t take pictures. The exhibit walked through each of the parts of the song and how and where Francis Scott Key. It was actually written about a battle that took place near Baltimore..

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That concludes Day 10. It was a long day and we were wore out. Our pedometers actually recorded over 17,000 steps for the day. We took the tour bus back to the campground and ate left overs and had a quiet night.

On Day 11, we had planned to check out the National Holocaust, Natural History, and Air & Space Museum. Like most plans, all of those museums didn’t happen. We were captivated with the National Holocaust Museum and spent the day there. We took a subway into the city which was both Aimee’s and my first subway ride..

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After a short walk, we arrived a half hour early to the Holocaust Museum. There was already a line halfway around the block. We had read reviews warning about the lines and to get there early.

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Photography wasn’t allowed inside of the museum and I can understand why. The exhibit took place over four floors and flowed very well. It told the story about the rise to power of the Nazis and the holocaust story of the Jews and other persecuted people. It was a very powerful exhibit and parts of it raised emotions in both of us. It was very detailed and gave personal accounts of both survivors and those who died. The Holocaust Museum was actually Aimee’s and my favorite part of DC, we highly recommend a visit if you travel to DC. At the start of the exhibit, you receive a passport, you actually become a person who persecuted during the Holocaust. My person actually was able to escape to America and join the military in fighting against the Germans. Aimee’s person unfortunately perished in the concentration camps.

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After completing the Holocaust Museum, Aimee and I were both physically and emotionally drained, we decided to take it back early to the RV park and chill out and catch up on our Blogs. I apologize for being so long, but we hoped you enjoyed our DC trip. One side note, the great thing about DC is that all of the attractions are free of charge thanks to our tax dollars, so take advantage of as much as you can. It was a very cool experience learning again about our Nation’s Capital, we wish we had more time to look at everthing. We both hope to bring our “future” kids here so they can experience it. Until tomorrow, Bon Soir!

Day 9 – Goodbye Nature, Hello City

Hi there…On a side note, sorry we haven’t been blogging, the days have been long here in DC. We decided to call it an early day in today to rest and catch up on our blogs..so here goes

On Day 9, we enjoyed a full biscuit, eggs, and sausage breakfast, props to Aimee for that, I love her big breakfasts. We packed up our camper and site and made it ready to go for the road. Our site was very nice with plenty of shade. Big Meadows Campground had no hookups, it was our first primitive site of the trip. We ran our portable Honday Generator for a couple hours each day to fully charge the battery and during high power use times. We were able to enjoy a fire both of the nights. Here’s a picture of our site..

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With a little time to kill before hitting the road we decided to head to Big Meadows Lodge. The lodge is definitely old and rustic. It had huge wood beams inside and gave off a very warmth atmosphere.

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Outside the lodge, there’s was a worker demonstrating how to build wooden chairs. It was pretty cool, I watched him work the wood for some time. The chairs looked pretty sturdy and comfy. In the picture below, he is making the strips for the seat of the chair..

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We settled in the library. It was the first time we had cell service in a couple of days, we appreciate the comments and likes! With cell service we were able to connect to the grid and blog..

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After finishing up with the blogs, we decided to hit the road. On the way out, we saw more deer of course. Again, it was amazing that the deer didn’t run away with the roar of the loud Cummings Engine, they were pretty tame..

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We got on the road, going north on Skyline Drive for another 30 miles. The road was winding and beautiful…Roux sure enjoyed the ride..

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One section of the road even had us going through a tunnel with a maximum ceiling hight of 12’7″. I was kind of uneasy because I hadn’t measured our hight, I knew we were closer to 11′ but not exactly sure. We made it through with no damage, but measured exactly now, we are just under 11′. The tunnel was a cool part of the drive though..

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After about 2 hours we finally were back in the city. We knew this because the last 25 miles of the trip took almost 2 hours as we were caught in DC 5 o’clock traffic, welcome back to city life. After what seemed like forever, we finally arrived in Cherry Hill Park. This campground is the only one in the DC area and they have every amenity a camper could want. The metro bus and tour buses actually make a pass through the park so you could leave your car parked and not worry about driving to the sights of DC, this was very convenient and we used this both days we toured DC, more to come in the next blog..

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