Hershey RV Park, July 2018

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We have had a great time here at Hershey for the last three weeks.  High temps along with high humidity has kept us inside a lot, along with some rains, heavy at times and a flash flood alert one night.  It is still easy to find indoor things to explore.  Some areas we have revisited but also found some new places that we haven't been to before.

We visited AACA museum (Antique Automobile Club of America). The Mustang Exhibit opened in May so the showroom floors will filled with Mustangs, along with other old cars, buses and a display of an old filling station that even had the air hose to call for an attendant to fill you tank, wash your windshield, and check your tires and oil.  This was our first time here and really enjoyed our visit.  Also on display was the Tucker auto, Preston Tucker was way ahead of the game in automobiles I think, but just couldn't make it. Only 51 cars were ever made, before the operations ceased due to negative publicity initiated by the news media, and a Security and Exchange Commission investigation, along with stock fraud, which were proven to false.  Down in their basement they have the best miniature railroad set up, along with the little towns.  You push a button and the car wash runs a car through, push another button and the tire swings starts.  While you are doing all this you are pushing buttons to make several different trains run and pothers things on display work Think the adults were enjoying just as much as the kids, if not more.


Also a new stop for us was the Zoo America Wildlife Park. They have more than 200 animals from 5 distinct areas of North America.  The zoo began in 1905 with an exhibit of prairie dogs.  In 1910 it opened with exotic animals, in 1970 a major transformation happened exhibiting only North America animals, this also including many rescue animals.


Took a drive to Lancaster one day, this is an Amish area.  When we visited before we took a bus tour from the information center, it wasn't available this year but we were given a map of the route.  I wanted to stop at the Country Store where we had stopped on our last visit.  They make the best sugar-free apple butter.  Their store is filled with local homemade items that are for sale.  Couldn't leave without a fresh baked pretzel either. The store has great ice cream but we were headed for another stop and ice cream so passed on it. While in the area we also drove to the town of Bird-In-Hand and Intercourse, how do these towns get named?  We headed to the Turkey Hill Experience, don't feel it was as good as our last visit but if you aren't full of ice cream when you leave, it's your own fault.  Veterans get free admission but I had to pay $9.50 for my "experience". It was a self-guided tour explaining the process, I milked a "cow", we saw a short film on the ice cream making process, created our own flavors via a computer.  We were even get an opportunity to help with sampling of ice cream products that they are thinking of marketing.  Onto the  ice cream tasting.  They had about 5 samples you could taste, we did 3 or 4 of them.  They were good but I think Hershey Ice Cream was better. They also had several flavors of the Iced Tea they make, some were better than others, must of been 6 flavors to sample.


Visited Chocolate World (Hershey).  Took the ride to see how the candy it made which is animated but a cute ride.  After the ride you get a little chocolate bar.  Wondered through the gift shop, so mush to look at.  Passed on buying the candy and that wasn't even a hard thing to do, I was surprised.  You can do a lot there but everything is a charge and since we had been before we were OK to pass on it.

Drove to Harrisburg to visit The National Civil War Museum, another place we have visited but don't mind returning to most of the museums we have seen before.  Got there shortly after they opened and the place was deserted so was able to explore one floor and was almost done with it before we ran into anyone else.  History is shown on Slavery, Making of the Armies, Medicine, Life-Like Exhibits, even a soldier's campsite.  Over 4,000 artifacts and 21,000 archival documents.  After the Battle of Gettysburg, 37,574 rifles were recovered and sent to Washington to be reissued.