
Hershey, Pennsylvania
As the wheel of our van, the “Aloha” rolled across the highway that feeling of excitement came over us! There is just something indescribable about the feeling of being out on the road! Amy and I with brand new adventures ahead to share in together.
“Look! There’s a sign for Hershey!” she blurted out. Loudly, I should add. I turned my head to look out of the passenger window just catching a glimpse of the sign. It was blurry to my eyes and then disappeared. Another sign for Hershey came shortly thereafter, then another, and yet another. “I bet that's where they make the chocolate!” Amy shouts breaking the silence in the van. She’s smiling so big when she shouts this at me. I have no idea why she is shouting because I am but only a foot away from her in the passenger seat. Her eyebrows were raising up and down. She looked me straight in the eyes, not on the road where her eyes should be! “Hershey Chocolate!” She begins to laugh hysterically. My wife has gone chocolate mad!
While Amy is sipping on her yellow vitamin water i’m typing in Hershey Park. I call it her yellow vitamin water because I have no idea what flavor it is. I can’t ever remember so when I do buy her one in the store I just grab a yellow one. Nine times out of ten I grab the right flavor. I found a lot of stuff popping up from my search. The information I found was very interesting. I read it out loud to Amy as she brought us closer to the town of Hershey.
“It says the chocolate genius was a man named Milton Hershey. He was always a fascinated with the taste of caramel. He dropped out of school at the early age of 13. By age 15 Milton began his apprenticeship with Lancaster. He is noted as the founder of Lancaster Caramel Company. Milton soon borrows a couple of hundred bucks from family telling them he wants to open his very own candy shop!
After a couple of failed attempts to open his own shop Milton decided to go over seas to Germany to learn more about the chocolate making process. He spends the next three years perfecting himself and learning how to use milk in the chocolate making process without the milk spoiling. This became known as the Hershey Process. His true process became a secret trademark and remains unknown today.”
I pause my reading to Amy. Her eyes are on the road ahead. She tells me to continue. So I keep reading.
“Milton Hershey opens his own factory in Pennsylvania renaming the town Hershey. He started with six acres which eventually grew into the over two million square feet it is today. He wanted this employees to be happy. He built up the town. He built a school, hospital, recreational areas / parks, a church, a museum, and a trolley system.”
I looked up what chocolate Hershey sold the most of. It says that M&Ms and Hershey Kisses alternate from year to year for the number one spot of the most sold chocolate in America. Reeces Peanut Butter Cups come in at number three.
“Is this where they make it for real?” I guess i’m still not convinced.
“Google that shit!” she says with an emphasis on the bad word! What a potty mouth! This is an ongoing joke between us two married folk. Van life has aloud us so many “side visits.” Side visits is what we call our unscheduled, unplanned adventures. We see something cool along the road and we stop and check it out, a “side visit.”
Hershey Park was just one of the many side visits we have made in the last two years since purchasing the Aloha.
So what I did next was, “I’m going to Google that shit!” This made us laugh and snicker like two little kids who just shared the silliest joke but to them, to us it was hysterical. Amy continued to drive on with both eyes on the road ahead this time. I brought out my iPhone and mashed the Safari APP.
Amy took the exit. We drove through the town of Hershey. Just on the outskirts of the other side of town we entered into the Hershey Park. We saw roller coasters off in the distance. It appeared as if this portion of the park was closed. Maybe due to inclement weather? It was raining pretty heard and chilly outside. Next, we followed the signs leading us into the parking area. We found a parking spot easy right up front. We exited the Aloha and walked along this trolley (wasn’t running this day plus we were in no need of a ride). Then we saw the building with the Hershey Bar, Hershey Kiss, and Reeces Peanut Butter Cup on its rooftop. We turned and took a selfie of course!
My birthday is on October 12th every year! It never changes isn’t that cool? October 12th is the real Columbus Day. Although the military and many other businesses celebrate it on a Monday or a Friday so they can get a three day weekend in there, it’s on the 12th. Google that sh..!
This year I would be celebrating my 50th Birthday! It just so happens that the park was also celebrating its 50th anniversary. There was a huge backdrop in front of Chocolate World stating so. We took some more pictures and then strolled on inside excited to see and maybe taste some chocolate?
Once we stepped inside we were in awe. Chocolate everywhere. They had numerous areas set up to take photos and of course Amy headed over to every one of them! There were so many people, it definitely felt like we were at an amusement park. There were rows and rows of Hershey treats. There were numerous stands with stuffed animals, puzzles, and games. They had a milkshake section, and of course different areas for different candies, Hershey Kisses of all flavors (at least 16 I counted), Reeces Peanut butter popcorn, cups, cakes, snacks of all kinds, also in many flavors. They had the largest selection of Jolly Ranchers, Payday, Kit Kats (my favorite) and so many more items i’d have to list them somewhere to tell you. You name it, they make it, it’s available. We stopped by the Kit Kat stand where I held the biggest Kit Kat i’d ever seen. Amy asked me how much it cost, I looked, $30 dollars. Amy found the biggest Hershey Bar we’d ever laid eyes upon. We didn’t buy one, although we should have. Would it had melted in the van? We would have gorged on them if we had purchased them. I tend to stay away from chocolate being a former chocoholic, lol. We did make some purchases in smaller sizes of course.
We found the entrance to the factory tour. It was free! we entered and walked upstairs and got in line. They have billboards, posters, photographs, history upon history on the walls as you make your way to the ride. Yes, there was a ride waiting on us at the end, well beginning of the line. We learned so much about chocolate and Sir Milton Hershey along our walk. We reached the staircase heading back down. They had these four seater cars, well oval shaped things on a moving floor. We were escorted to our private ride and hopped aboard. We were greeted by talking chocolate bars and kisses on the monitor. Away we went through a series of turns and tunnels. Each section we passed through had information pouring in on us from the monitors above our heads. There was roasting, milling, adding milk and sugar, milk delivery, drying, refining, as well as many other areas along our journey. We thought is was well done and glad we had decided to come. We watched as chocolate poured from tubes and was sent into these tables, watched it get mixed with milk and sugar. We saw how the bars, kisses, and others were packaged and sent down, up, across on a series of conveyor belts. We did finally reach the end and were handed some chocolate. That’s a cool way to end the ride!
We exited the tour area and walked around for another hour or so, made our purchases and exited the building. We walked over to the Hershey Park gift store where we spent another twenty five minutes or so playing with bean bag kisses and stuffed animals. There were so many unique items to buy. We would’ve stayed longer but we needed to get back on the road. We were still trying to arrive at a campsite before dark and break our terrible non-existent record of being always late in the dark.
We left Hershey behind and made our way back to the freeway. On to Kentucky we drove to continue my 50th Birthday Celebration along the Bourbon Trail. We made several more stops when we reached our 37th state, West Virginia. Yes, we did eventually make it to our next campground, however, it was late and it was very dark. LOL.
Hope you enjoyed this journal entry about our “side visit” to Hershey, PA. If you haven’t been make sure you put it on your bucket list. Just a fun time we had and would definitely recommend a trip there. If you haven’t watched our Hershey, PA video go check it out now if you like. See exactly what i’m talking about when I say it’s loads of fun, and chocolate!