7/20/2008

Let the vacation posts commence! I'm going to cram stuff up here as the opportunity presents and add pics later. If you want to see pics, click on the flickr pics at right and look at whatever is newest. Thanks for stopping by! So... two days of driving and we’re finally here! Here’s the news:

Day 1:
We were up at three AM on Friday, and on the road by 4. I never tought we’d pull it off, but we did! Yay team! We zipped through Wisconsin. Zipped through the Chicago area. Sailed through Indiana. Then… we hit Ohio. I glanced out the window. No movement. Checked the speedometer. 65mph. Give it a bit more gas. Look out the window again. Again, no movement. Check again… 70 mph. Hmmm. More gas. I peer curiously outside. Still nothing. A glance at the speedometer. 75. Curiouser and curiouser. More gas. The pedal hits the floor. The speedometer read 80 mph (gimme a break, I’m driving a fully loaded minivan). A definite drift is visible in the external scenery. The minivan crawls through Ohio like a slug through molasses. 137 hours later, we finally reach the Pennsylvania border. My lord, Ohio rivals Nebraska! I mean you KNOW Nebraska is going to be long, but Ohio? I mean, hell, it’s only 4 letters, how long could it be? Damn long, it turns out.

Well, eventually, we reached Harrisburg PA, where we’ve reserved a heated closet at the Comfort Inn Riverfront. The hotel is currently being extensively remodeled… which we knew… what we didn’t know was that they are converting it from one of those old school motels with the exterior entrances to a new style motel. Their plan was to just enclose the outdoor hallway. Unfortunately, the room air conditioners dump their excess heat into the hallway. A handful of bigger air conditioners are struggling to shift that heat outside, but it’s a losing battle. With temps in the 90’s outside, the hallway must be over 120. Weird. And even if they work out their heat pump issues, the rooms will still be 10x15. Still, they’re nicely decorated, and relatively clean. Just a little tight for a family of four. Oh well.

Day 2:
Off to Hershey. First, breakfast at the Hershey CafĂ©. Two thumbs up. First shared a cinnamon bun as big as my head. Then, TheWife and had delicious breakfast paninis (scrambled egg, spinach & mozzarella on sun dried tomato bread – yum!). TheGirl hit the mother load, tho. French toast made from strawberry coffeecake, topped with fresh strawberries and strawberry syrup. Looked awesome, and she gave it two thumbs up.j

Hershey has a nice little park downtown, too. TheBoy was pushing the limits walking the beam. He was so scared, but so brave. Then, off to the main effent – Hershey World. Last summer, we stopped off at Makers Mark in Loretto. I loved it and the rest of the family was mildly entertained. Hershey World had the same effect, except TheGirl was in heaven. Singing cows, the smell of chocolate, and information overload. There were flashing video screens, animated candy bar production scenes, and the aforementioned animatronic cows – all accessed on a moving car with music cranking, and tour guide voices coming out of the car speakers. Perhaps I haven’t explained this properly. Everything I just mentioned was ALL HAPPENING AT ONCE. I missed about half of it from the seizures it triggered, but I’m assured it was all equally excellent. And to wrap it all up, the gift shop, featuring every Hershey bar possible for sale, and clothing and stuffed animals to match. I can’t believe how much money we spent on a free tour! Next year TheWife gets to pick the tour – anyone know a place that manufactures black pepper?

After Hershey, we powered through to VA. More about the resort later.

Day 3:

Checked out the resort today. Nice pool (closed right now, due to a sudden need to super chlorinate. I don't want to know why). There's even a kids pool that goes from 1' to about 2'. TheBoy is getting steadily more comfortable with it. TheGirl's gills are beginning to show.


The resort also has a kick ass games room. You pay $5 a room to use the room each day. Actually, three rooms. They have a wide selection of arcade games: from Ms. Pacman to Dance, Dance REvolution to your favorite shoot em up and race car games. There's also a wii cometition area - though we haven't sween that in action yet. Very cool, and very worth the extra $5 a day.

Then we headed down to try out our first day of Colonial Williamsburg (CW). We toured the Governor's Mansion, wandered through the maze with TheBoy as our guide (an unerring sense of direction in that boy), and watched an arms demonstration. First, rifles, then small cannon. TheGirl and I were mightily impressed. TheBoy was not a fan. He had a bit of a Red Badge of Courage moment. When the first shots rang out, he flinched, went white, turned and ran. I tried to prep him for the second volley, but it didn't help. Poor little guy. He about filled his shorts with all of the reports and booms. It was around 5pm by then, and Chownder's Tavern was packed, so home we went. Pizza for dinner and swims to relax after an exhausting day. More CW tommorrow!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds awesome so far Mike, and I have been on the Hallucinegenic flasback inducing tour at Hershey world.! We also spent quite a bit for the "free tour" Enjoy! Ride the Alpen-giest at Busch-Gardens for Me!!

Shevy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shevy said...

I'm impressed that you are updating ON vacation! I'm still a month behind! Sounds like you're having a good time! I just saw the comment you made on my flickr pic. The boy knows what he likes! Have a great rest of vacations!!!

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