A Chocolate Civil War

Oct 19th
Second day of adventure here in Carlisle, PA. We decided to take a run back to Hershey, where the famous Hershey Chocolate Bars are made.This was about 40 miles of back tracking, but with the assistance of the jeeps GPS, a fairly easy task. On the way, Highway 83 passes over the Sasquehanna River, and in the distant, some 10 miles away we were able to see the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant. If you don't remember the details of that News Item in 1979, there is an excellent article on it at:
http://www.pahighways.com/features/threemileisland.html

I borrowed this picture from the web, as we really did not get quite this close, but this is the #2 site that was the one with the problem that almost became a disaster, and is now shut down forever.

As we were on an Interstate traveling at 65MPH with no pull outs available, we of coarse did not get a picture of it. Even Denice, as quick a she is, missed it! Traveled another 25 miles on into Hershey and first to the Hershey Gardens. This is a large immaculately groomed garden in the heart of Hershey.
It was the original site where M.S. Hershey started the gardens away back in 1936. Here is a part of the history:
At a dinner for the Federation of Pennsylvania Garden Clubs, Milton S. Hershey was approached to sponsor a national rose garden in Washington, D.C.. he instead decided to open a rose garden in Hershey, PA where he and the community could enjoy it. Mr. Hershey's response was "Well, we have been planning a Garden of our own; and, before we give that amount of money for the politicians to play with, we better spend some of it at our own place . . . " The next day horticulturalist, Harry Erdman began staking out the garden. 12,000 roses were planted, The Hershey Gardens first opened to the public on June 2, 1937 as a rose garden occupying 3.5 acres. On the first day more than 20,000 visitors came to see the rose garden. In 1937, 1939 and 1941 Milton Hershey added more gardens. By 1941 the gardens had been enlarged to their current size, Then in 1942, the land to the east of the Rose Garden was deemed unfit on which to farm or build houses. At this Milton Hershey gave Erdman the orders to make another garden. He asked for no plans or cost estimates. Only telling Erdman he would tell him to stop if it got too big. In 1998 a Butterfly House opened. In 2003, the children's Garden opened. The Children's Garden covers 1 1/2 acreas and features almost 30 separate gardens designed to teach about plants through interactive, hands-on displays. Today the gardens include an arboretum, The Children's Garden, herb garden, Japanese garden, magnolia grove, oak grove, ornamental grass collection, perennial garden, conifer collection, two substantial rose gardens, and a seasonal flower garden. The rose garden contains about 7,000 rose bushes representing 275 varieties. The gardens also contain a butterfly house featuring 300 butterflies of some 25 varieties.

Hershey's also have a very large "Summer Playland," but now shut down for the winter.

From the gardens we went down the hill to the Hershey Chocolate factory. Here we bought about 100 lbs of chocolate! (that's not the weight of the purchase, but the weight it will add to our frames if we were to eat it all. I'm sure a bunch of our family will help us, but it will still will add up to a hundred pounds).

We went to a 3D animated show of the Hershey Chocolate Empire. It was very good with excellent 3D content and effects, including actually feeling rain drops and smelling Hershey's chocolate being made.

We ended our tour by making our own version of Chocolate bar, where we chose all the extra ingredients and toppings, as well as the packaging detail.To do this we had to don hairnets (even if no hair) and aprons to be allowed into the inside of the factory. The complete setup is controlled by computers and once you select all the items you want, on a computer screen, you can watch while the various machines put it all together.

Here is my Chocolate Bar being built!

First the bar base rolls out, then additives in the center, then different ones, now chocolate covering, then setting up a little, and sprinkles on top, then wrapping and packaging. Complete!!

The completed project is tastefully (not a pun) presented to you in a tin box with a Hershey's bag for you to take home for your memories. Not sure when I may be allowed to taste my concoction!!
Oct 18th
Note** Because of the multitude of pictures we are taking at some of these places it was necessary for me to figure out a way to display them without boring my audience with too many, so I have found a way to show the thumbnails of our pictures in pages of six at a time. Click on any one of them to enlarge for better viewing.
We were planning on moving farther south today , but you know those Jello castings! Found a lot of things in the area that we should visit while we are here, so delayed our next reservation for 2 days, and reserved here for two more. We decided since we are this close that we should go to Gettysburg. It's only about 30 miles away. Should be a short day to run down to the museum and look around and then return home. Well, we left home at 9:30AM, and just got back at 8:00PM this evening. There is just soooo much to see there!! We started at the Gettysburg museum. It is a large building with several corridors done with very life like scenes from the Civil War, depicting many of the historic events.

When you exit from these corridors, you ,of course, end up in the gift shop. We bought a few items and then the cashier advised us of the self guided tour, assisted by an audio CD, of the historic battle between the North and South, through the actual battle grounds around town. We bought the disk and started the tour. We had no idea how many monuments there were through out to tour.

We started taking pictures of each one, but by about 4:00PM, even Denice was by passing some of them.


The drive around tour must have been about 10 miles, and I'm sure there were at least 200 individual monuments.

The two on the lower left are taken from the Eisenhower Tower. It is about 100 feet high and you get a grand view of the surrounding Battle Field ! The lower center is looking down from the top at the 100 or so steps.

We have pictures of most of them for proof. I had forgot the battery for my camera, that was charging in ELTORO , so I was forced to use Denice's new "little" camera. About evening twilight time Denice's "Big" camera battery died, her second battery of the day. Soon the little camera battery also died. We were not quite done the tour yet, but we were out of camera power, We also had not stopped for lunch all day, so immediately after exiting the park we found a KFC, and went in for dinner. Chicken never tasted so good!! Then had to return to ELTORO in Carlisle in the dark. A great Day!! Do not ever miss Gettysburg if you have a chance!!