Day 4 - Bright and early, we are on our way to Hershey Park, in Hershey, PA (of course). I have to say that the park itself was kind of a disappointment, but I did enjoy the "pretend" tour of the chocolate factory. In fact, this was the highlight of the visit.
The entrance to Hershey Park:
The waterpark was brand new in 2007 and very popular on this very hot day:
David loved the surfing simulator --
Wipe out!
Here are a couple pics of the pretend factory tour:
It was a really long day, and very hot and humid. It felt great to get back to the hotel and relax!
The next day, we finished the second half of the battlefield tour. It's really hard to choose my favorite photos, but here are a few of my best:
------------ After this, we went into the town of Gettysburg for souvenir shopping and just to walk around a bit. Gettysburg is a very charming town, with many historic buildings. Here we are at the Farnsworth House (remember the ghost tour?) in the daytime:
And a few random pics around and about Gettysburg:
---------- That afternoon, we drove to Harrisburg and checked into our hotel there. In the evening, we visited the local mall and Bass Pro Shop. And that ends Day 3.
We are finally here in Gettysburg! We did a lot of touring today --
First, the Gettysburg Museum of the Civil War:
And right across the street from the museum is the Gettysburg National Cemetery where Lincoln's historic Gettysburg Address was made (spoken...addressed...? whatever):
Then, we toured the battlefield. It was pretty awesome to be there. We all really enjoyed the auto tour -- a CD that you play in your car that narrates all the stops and various monuments, etc., and gives you a very interesting story about the battle.
Here are a couple photos from the Gettysburg battlefield:
Later that night, we went on a ghost tour at the Farnsworth House. I won't tell you what I experienced here, but it was weird enough for me to get the chills right now just thinking about it! Also, Chuck and David and I all heard what sounded like guns firing at night over the battlefield. David insists they were fireworks, but there were no lights and I don't think they were. Spooky!
Here's a link to more about the Farnsworth House (named by the Travel Channel as one of the Top Ten most haunted inns in the U.S.):
Well, its been a long delay since I said I was going to work on the Road Trip story. Oh well!
So, we left on July 28 at 7:46 AM. On the first day we just drove and drove all the way to Cranberry, Pennsylvania. We took the Indiana Tollroad, the Ohio Turnpike and then the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
I decided to try to take a photo of every 100 miles on the road. What a cute idea! However cute, it only lasted for about the first 600 miles.
Here is the photo of 100 miles out:
This was taken on the Indiana Tollroad near Elkhart, Indiana.
We decided to stop somewhere for breakfast, so we asked our Garmin for a suggestion. She suggested a place in Edon, Ohio called the Feed Bag or the Feed Mill or something like that. Anyway, we drove about 5 miles down a little road and there it was. We had a great breakfast in a cute little town.
After that, we just kept driving. Here is the 204 mile photo:
This one was taken somewhere in Ohio at about 1:37 PM.
And the following photo was taken at 357 miles on 80 East in Ohio near the Cuyahoga River:
-------------------- And one more: taken at mile 436 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, east of Pittsburgh -
------------- So, Day 1 is almost over. We have arrived in Cranberry, Pennsylvania in the late afternoon. We are staying at the Hyatt Place for the night. This is a really cool hotel - our room has a 42" plasma tv!
----------------- For dinner we drove across the street to a restaurant called "Eat & Park". It was pretty similar to a Baker's Square. The thing is, though, wouldn't a more correct name be "Park & Eat"? I don't get it at all. I would think you need to park before you eat, rather than after. Someone didn't think that name out very well at all. ----------------- Have a nice rest! Tomorrow we take off bright and early for Gettysburg.
We have returned from Road Trip 2007 and it was a very long road! I can't believe how much we did and saw in 8 days. We logged 1,875 miles from beginning to end.
Its kind of a strange thing that I love Road Trips, but I hate to ride in cars. I always like to sit in the back seat and do things to take my mind off the traveling - listen to my ipod, do cross-stitch, read a book, play my PSP, etc. But I love the planning and I love the thought of seeing the country!
I've been on a lot of road trips - the first major one I can recall was my Mom and Dad taking me and my younger sister to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Huntsville, AL. My Dad was driving our new (used) 1966 gold chevy with the black vinyl top.
We weren't too far out of Chicago when the a/c conked out. The real crime about that happening was that this was our very FIRST car that had a/c. So it was a huge excitement to have this cool and comfortable ride to look forward to. But it just wasn't to be.
Anyway, the road trip that year (1970, I believe) took us through Carbondale, IL to visit our brother at SIU, then on through the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee where we visited Lookout Mountain and Rock City.
I recall being so very impressed with Rock City, that I brought my kids back there many years later.
We did make it to Huntsville and had a nice visit with the relatives before the long trek back home.
Many of my other Road Trips have run together in my head -- I know I took a wonderful Road Trip to the East Coast once upon a time in the early 80's. Traveling through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island...maybe more - I just can't remember!
Then there was the Road Trip with the destination of Virginia Beach in 1987. We visited Williamsburg and Chincoteague, where we saw the stuffed "Misty" - those who are book readers will know what I'm talking about. And then on the way home visited those same relatives of the 1970 Road Trip, only this time in Kentucky.
I loved the Road Trip of 2002. It was kind of a cheating Road Trip because we flew part of the way, but really....driving to California was not an option. We started in San Francisco, drove over to Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevadas, down through the Garlic Capital of the world - Gilroy -, to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon (wait a minute -- not sure if we did that on this particular trip or not!), but I know we did visit the Winchester House in San Jose; Monterey, Carmel, then on to Los Angeles before flying home. And yes, we traveled the great Highway 1 along Big Sur.
The reason this one is not totally clear is because its kind of like the Road Trip of 1998 (with my sisters and Mom) in that we flew to California and drove from there. I know we did many of the same things as the Road Trip of 2002, but in an all-girl kind of way instead of a family type thing. Just a different experience.
And back in 1992, like I was talking about above -- took our little kids (they were 5, 4 and 6 months old) to the same relatives' anniversary party in Kentucky and from there went down to Rock City and Lookout Mountain.
I know I did several Road Trips to Florida, both married and single. With kids, without. On one of the Florida Road Trips, the kids counted every Waffle House restaurant along the way and I wish I recalled the count. Its kind of funny that our brown Astro van's air conditioning broke down shortly out of Chicago on that trip..... It was fun anyway, and in addition to Disney we drove over to the coast and spent some days on the beach at Indialantic. Of course, on the way down we stopped at Rock City and Lookout Mountain because we had one more child by then who had never been there!
I kind of doubt that I have mentioned all the Road Trips I've taken. There have been many many short ones, that's for sure. But I'm not sure that weekend trips would count as Road Trips, no - not really.
So, this is the intro to the Road Trip Saga. I'll start posting photos and the story, day to day, of our great Road Trip 2007 in the upcoming days or weeks, depending on my enthusiasm!
David loved the surfing simulator --
Wipe out!
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