Yesterday afternoon, we made our way toward central Pennsylvania into Amish country. We stopped at an old Amish farmhouse for a farm tour, and were immediately struck by the buses that they had in the parking lot. Hmm… We went inside and bought tickets, the ladies working the cash registers were quite opposites, one was an older lady, who was clearly Mennonite in typical Mennonite dress. The other one wore a shorter skirt and a tank top and had a nose ring. We bought our tickets and spent a little bit of time browsing through the Amish made goods in the shop while we waited for our tour.
Our tour guide was the Mennonite woman, who had been raised Amish and converted to Mennonite at age 25. She was a very lovely lady, who gave us a great tour and was happy to answer any questions we had. Her daughter had written a book about her and used photographs of her grandkids to ‘illustrate’ the story. We purchased a copy and got her to sign it and pose for a picture with the kids.
After we toured the farmhouse, we headed outside to tour the little Amish village. They had all sorts of farm animals that you could pet or feed. I took this picture of a bucket of chicken.
I posed for a picture with this mule and before the picture was taken, she bit me! John still wanted a picture of me with the mule, so we took another one, with me much farther away and my arms tucked safely behind my back. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that I have been bitten by a mule. Apparently I must look or smell like a mule treat!
Trista loved feeding the animals and they loved her right back! Trista also couldn’t imagine a one-room schoolhouse and said, “That would be AWFUL! You would have to share the room with… Fourth Graders!”
The schoolhouse had these great signs above the doors. I think the world would be a much better place if we all approached life in this manner!
Levi loves anything with wheels, so he really enjoyed checking out the buggies. At one point, he looked up and saw some old farm equipment at the end of the yard and yelled, “TRUCKS!!!!!!!!!” as he took off down the lawn. Trista chased after him yelling, “You have to read the signs before you can sit on them!!!!”
We planned to head over to Hershey after this, but it was later than planned (see earlier post about grey tank situation), so we decided to head to our RV spot and hit Hershey in the morning.
When we got to our campsite, it was dinner time and I jumped up to get it going while John went outside to hook up and set up the RV. We weren’t there 5 minutes and I hear Trista telling our life story to a lady. This is one of the things that I am struggling to get used to in the RV world. I am outgoing, but I am a complete introvert. There are very nice people to be found in RV parks, and I love to be outside, but I often find myself hiding out inside, because I just can’t be that social all the time. This continues on for a bit and Trista is literally telling her every detail of our lives. Finally, I hear John walk over there and we realize that this woman is still INSIDE her camper and talking to Trista through the screen door. RV life is heaven for the rest of my family of social butterflies! The couple she was talking to were so nice and very tolerant of our chatty, wound up kids!
This morning we got up and got going, slower than we wanted to be again, as has become our usual. While we were packing up, Levi managed to make his own construction site in the dirt outside. We have about 8 trucks in quarantine due to mud saturation!
We finally got out around lunch time and before we left, we made a quick call to our friend John to wish him a very happy birthday! We did not want to let this extra-special day pass by, because we sure think he is nifty! 😉
We set off and made our way over to Hershey’s Chocolate World (I know we are heading to Disney, but this just might be the happiest place on earth). I love Hershey’s chocolate and was very excited about this. We have discovered on several occasions during this trip that sometimes it pays to pull up in an RV and this was one of those times! The lady at the parking booth told us that the lot was full, but we were welcome to head over to see if there was any RV or bus parking open and if not we would have to park quite a way away and walk. We followed her instructions and there was plenty of RV/bus parking and it was right in front of the entrance! This place has a big lot and I was blown away by how big it was and how many people were there. We made our way in and right away were able to have our picture taken with a grape Jolly Rancher! We bought tickets for the 4D experience movie and headed over there first.
While we were waiting, a lady with a microphone came over to each of the kids and asked their names and something they liked to do. We didn’t really think much of it, but they actually talked to the kids in the movie and called them by name! It was pretty cool about half way through when the Hershey bar looked over his shoulder and said, “Did you see that, Levi and Trista?”
The movie was awesome, it was filmed in 3D and then the chairs vibrated at times to feel like you were there, we got blasted with air or water a couple of times, when the Jolly Rancher showed up you could smell the grape and when they covered the bad guy in chocolate you could smell the chocolate! At one point, the screen and theater were filled with bubbles and toward the end streamers popped out of the ceiling!
After that we headed over to take the Hershey’s tour. When we bought tickets for the movie, the guy told us the tour was free (which we knew) and that you could head over and take it at any time. I wondered if it was self-guided. When we made our way over there, one of the employees said, “Enjoy your ride!” Ride? Huh. We worked our way through the line and got to a place where they took our picture and again said, “Enjoy your ride!” When we finally got near the front of the line, there was a sign that said, ‘Stairs ahead. Moving floor. 5 people per car. Keep your group together.’ Sure enough, you come down a short flight of stairs, onto a rotating floor and get into these roller coaster cars to ride through the tour! We got in ours and there is a TV screen at the front of each car section and you ride this thing through the ‘tour’ that shows all of the steps to how the chocolate is made! It felt much more like a Disney ride than a factory tour. It was not at all what we expected, but it was awesome!
Afterward, we browsed the gift shop. I broke down and had some coffee, it was so unbelievably good, no regrets! Levi found a Lego Hershey Factory and we let him buy it. Trista was upset, because she has spent her money and wasn’t able to get something here. I bought each of them a crushed penny and we took lots of pictures!
When we left Chocolate World, we made our way through the town of Hershey, which is quite beautiful – check out these street lamps! (They have these street lamps all through town)
We drove around a bit in Amish country and saw lots of horses and buggies.
We stopped to do a bit of grocery shopping and made our way to the campground. John was struggling a little bit backing in, since the spaces are kind of tight and the hookups in this spot are in a weird place. A guy at the spot across from us jumped right up and came over to help and again, our kids made friends with fellow campers immediately! While we were setting up, an Amish woman and her son rode their buggy right through the campground selling homemade baked goods. The kids were interested, but we passed, due to the whole gluten issue, but another lady from the same campsite across from us came over and asked if she could share the cookies she had purchased with the kids! We also noticed the rig next to them and John and I were sort of marveling at how big and beautiful this thing was. We struck up a conversation with those folks as well and they graciously offered us a tour. We enjoyed chatting with them and when the kids came over, they showed them how their massaging couch works! I have officially set my retirement goals!
We found our way back to our own rig for dinner and tonight decided to let the kids sleep in the bunk for the first time! We are hoping that this will allow us to do some cleaning while the kids are sleeping and help us get out of here sooner in the morning. We’ll see.
It was very nice meeting all of you. Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip Safe travels the couple with the massaging couch
Thank you! Safe travels to you and Debbie on the bike!