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| Cannons |
Our first trip out is to visit Gettysburg. Touring the battle site can be done by tour
bus (not our style), private tour guide (none available) or using a CD to
describe the site while following the auto tour signs. This seems to be our best option, so we
purchase the most comprehensive 150-year anniversary edition CD that follows
the battle time line and start out. This
is a perfect way to tour the battlefield.
We drive at our pace and we get a pretty thorough understanding of the
battle, the distances involved and the horrendous loss of lives. It’s sobering
to walk the battlefields and imagine the carnage of the past.
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| Maple Ice cream in a bacon cup |
On our way back we stop in the town of Gettysburg at the
Garryowen Irish Pub. How can you go wrong with 56 brands of Irish Whiskeys and traditional pub food? After a couple of shots of Jameson we dine on
fresh Oysters on the Half Shell, Garden Salads, Yummy Guinness Beef Stew, and a Mixed Grill of Bangers, Bacon, Pork and Sausages. For desert we indulge in the
Soda Bread Pudding and the Maple Ice Cream served in a Bacon Cup. (Yum Bacon!) Our server is
fun, the food outstanding and there’s live music filtering down from upstairs. Too bad we're not staying closer, every Tuesday they have 'Bacon Night" featuring bacon dishes and bacon cocktails. A true gem in the area!
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| Central Market |
In York we stop at the Central Market. This farmer’s market has been in continuous
operation three days a week since 1888.
There are a lot of food vendors but there is also fresh produce, organic local
meats and dairy products. So, we fill our
fridge and freezer with a selection of these.
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| Harleys |
This area of Pennsylvania is known as the factory tour
capital of the world… so a touring we will go. First stop the Harley Davidson factory, where we tour the plant. After s short introductory film, we enter the plant to see gas tanks and fenders being fabricated
and the assembly line where the Touring,
Softail®, CVO™
and Trike models are built. They provide wireless headsets so we
can hear the tour guide over the noise of the factory. It’s informational, fun
and best of all FREE!
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| Yum Chocolate |
No trip to the area would be complete without a stop in
Hershey. At Chocolate World, we take the
free tour, not a real factory tour, but a simulation complete with singing
cows. There is a trolley tour of the
town. It’s corny and fun and gives a bit more insight into the inventor of
Hershey’s famous chocolate and the town. Most impressive is the Milton Hershey
School; a cost-free, private, coeducational
home and school for children from families of low income, limited resources,
and social need, funded by a trust set up by Milton Hershey and his wife
Catherine. We sign up for the
Chocolate Tasting Adventure. We lean
about coco production and then look, listen, smell and taste five varieties of
Hershey’s chocolate. Upon completion we
are awarded a Master’s Degree in Chocolate Tasting from Hershey’s
University. Love that higher education
especially when it involves chocolate! And, the best of all, in the Hershey's store you get the absolute freshest candies you've ever tasted!
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| Amish Farmers |
Nearby Lancaster County is home to Amish and Mennonite
farms. We drive through the countryside past fields being tilled by teams of horses, share the road with horse drawn buggies and see folks on old fashioned bicycles peddling about. Their clothes are plain, their demeanor
serious, they are self-sufficient and their pockets full of cash. It’s easy to
over romanticize this lifestyle, but like all communities there is a dark-side,
an internet search turns up incidents of physical and sexual abuse, genetic
disorders stemming from a closed community, puppy mills and lets not forget the
Discovery Channel’s Amish Mafia.
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| Twisting Hempzels |
Over in Hanover, we visit the Revonah Pretzel Factory. When we arrive the tour guide is not
available, but we are invited into the workroom where they are rolling and hand
twisting a batch of hemp pretzels.
(Hempzels.) We get to taste some of the garlic hemp dough and watch them
dip the pretzels in a soda solution and place them in the 1930’s era oven. They have been making pretzels like this for
150 years and their soft pretzels are the official pretzels of the Pittsburg
Steelers.
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| Tons-O-Chips |
In contrast the Utz chip factory is a vision of stainless
steel automation.The self-guided tour
takes us along a glass-enclosed walkway above the factory floor. Tons of
potatoes (literally) are poured into bins, they are sorted, washed, peeled,
sliced, fried, seasoned, cooled, bagged in nitrogen infused packaging, boxed and
loaded onto Utz trucks for delivery around the Mid Atlantic States. At the end of the tour we get a bag of chips…
yep it’s all that and a bag of chips. (Sorry couldn’t resist.) Then we head
over to their outlet center to pick up some snacks and try some ‘new flavors’ the
bacon horseradish chip is interesting – love the bacon flavor, but it’s a
little heavy on the horseradish.
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| Bakery in Reading Trminal Market |
Next it’s onto Philadelphia. We stay at the Timberlane Campground, in Clarksboro NJ. It’s the
closest RV Park to Philly and it has killer WIFI! It only takes us a half hour to drive across
the Ben Franklin Bridge into the City.
First stop is the Independence National Historic Park where we check out
the displays and view the Liberty Bell.
Tours of Independence Hall have sold out so we just enjoy the park for a
bit and then head over to the Reading Terminal Market. The market is a giant food court and farmer’s
market. No Chain or franchises here,
just local foodstuffs. We grab a
Cheesesteak sandwich at Carmens. Not the
best we’ve ever had… actually pretty disappointing. We pick up a few bottles of gourmet olive
oils and call it a day. Not really into the big city crappy traffic experience
today, but it’s been fun.
Well enough time here in the State of Virtue, Liberty and
Independence… time to try our luck in Atlantic City…
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