Month: May 2008

scranton, PA

Day 3 of our road trip, and I needed a place to stay that would be along our desired route, safe, clean, nice, and with decent food too. I discovered that Scranton, PA was really the only major city on our route that was within a reasonable # of miles from our last stop of day 2. They have a nice hotel that I trust to be clean and nice (Radisson) so we set it up.

We arrived at around 830pm, and being that I was totally EXHAUSTED from all the driving + merriment + chatting with fisk-a-teers and customers at the Hershey store… going out to eat was totally out of the question. I needed in-room dining. For those who are curious, the philly style cheese steak and fresh fried potato chips (still warm!) at the Lackawanna Radisson are ROCKIN GOOD!!!

I know she looks slightly crazed, but I still love this photo. She adored the tiny Ketchup bottle. She was sure it was meant for dipping fries right into it.

The view of the “scranton the electric city” sign from our room was awesome. It is a HUGE sign, and very vegas-esque. I watched it for a while… just a cool thing in my mind.

Then, after 30minutes on-line trying to find sights from the show from my FAVORITE show the office (set in Scranton!) I gave up and went to sleep. See, I am on this trip for WORK, not play, so I need to keep focused on what the truly important stuff is.

The next morning we awake to a beautiful day. We were in downtown scranton, so right in the middle of it all. Really prettier and more historic than I expected- and we did get to see the mall at steamtown and the historic steamtown (railroad) site in our driving.

the railroad museum- with some real working steam engines- is awesome. We only had about 30 minutes there (had to get on the road for work!) but it was cool. Elizabeth was totally smitten… until this bad boy covered her in steam and coal ash. She wasn’t so happy then and asked for the ones that don’t work any more.

 

Now here comes the funny part. I get home and unpack, and as I do so I’m telling Jason about our adventures, and how we didn’t find the building or welcome sign from the show’s opening credits. No time to go on a search, and didn’t have the info upfront. Then, as I’m showing him this scranton visitor booklet that I picked up (for the pics- for our scrapbook) I find on page 5 an article all about the office, and where you can find the sights mentioned in the show. No joke. The sign is inside the mall now so that people can get good pics (we didn’t go in- we were out of town by 930am!), and it also said addys of other stuff too.

Lesson learned here: The computer is NOT always smarter than ‘old school’ travel brochures. Sometimes the answer is right in your hotel room. UNDER the laptop you’re searching the Internet on…

and to celebrate Mother’s Day weekend I have a prize to give away. I’ll be sending a big ‘ol box of scrapbook goodies to one person who posts a comment here…

 

I will send e-mails on Monday if I don’t hear from the winners… CONGRATS! I’ve got more prizes in store for sure. and more candy, and chocolate, and adventures… for now- here’s the 2 winners I’ve drawn so far:

Cupcake stamp- Patty W

chocolate- Lisa Falduto

I’ll draw a book winner monday…

 

world of chocolate

It was actually much more compact/smaller/easier to navigate than I imagined. This was a good thing for sure, as I was a bit scared as to what I was going to find. Elizabeth liked that the chocolates were greeting us from the roof. I agree.

Once inside everything broke off from the lobby. Here we are with Rebecca and her son Joel. (it’s Joel… I think. If I’m wrong just smack me Rebecca!) in the lobby. The areas are the 3-d show (?), 1hr trolly tour of Hershey (fee for that one- about $12 if I remember correctly), the marketplace (shopping and food), the great chocolate tour, and factory works. (more on the last 3 in a moment…)

“marketplace” had most of the shopping and also an area full of food (pretty dang good selection- better than I anticipated!). Like I said before- all but about 3 or 4 of the chocolate items I’ve seen in my area. I’m guessing I just have a great city for candy shopping! I thought I took pics of inside marketplace. dang. Well it was shopping (candies, chocolates, apparel and gift items) and also a food court area. Pretty big, actually. 

I do have photos of the “great American chocolate tour”. It’s a ride (if you’ve been to Epcot- similar to spaceship earth) that you sit in a moving car and go through the process of making Hershey chocolate. It’s totally fake- you’re not going into the actual factory. But it’s fun, about 10min long, and the little ones think it’s for real. At the end you get a bite-sized chocolate. yum.

the ride line takes you through the cocoa plantations… I so love her patient face. As in “fine. I’ll wait and let you take a photo but only because I get to ride a ride.”

Then when you get into your ride car you start in the pastures surrounding Hershey. Where, apparently, the cows sing. “hershey’s milk chocolate, it’s the milk chocolate…” type song. This is where E was inspired to purchase Messy.

and they go through all the chocolate making steps, ending (of course!) with a big display of all the Hershey brand stuff! (those photos didn’t come out- dim light + fast moving stuff = total blur!)

the ‘factory works’ section had more (candy) shopping, plus a few interactive “purchase opportunities” such as a custom hershey bar, decorate a cupcake, and you could package up some hershey’s kisses. That last one is free (unless you want to buy a factory ID for your child)- and we went for it.

the kids put hershey kisses (which came off the assembly line) into a gear and shook them. I’m pretty sure gear shaking isn’t a part of the process at the actual factory. But that’s ok. As you can see- they enjoyed playing and shaking.

and that, is my 2hr tour of world of chocolate in Hershey, PA. Tomorrow (I know a few of you are waiting for it!) will be my Scranton, PA experience…

tales of Hershey…

As I sort, delete, and re-size some of the photos for blogging purposes all kinds of details and stories come back to me. For example- what’s up with this? Why are there cherries in the title? Is it Bru-cherries-ster’s? I don’t understand. I want the cherries moved to the end or beginning. For whatever reason- this sign just really got under my skin and sadly I had to see a few of these.

Moving on to sweeter things- our few hours in Hershey. So many people said “you have to check the streetlights!” and yeah, they’re cute. little chocolate kisses. I’m sure some of you wanted to see that…

and the fire department. Long story short: On a road trip when Jason and I were first dating we took pics of him with fire engines/firefighters in every state we went through. Now? It’s kind of become a habit to take pics of fire engines when I’m anywhere. Just because. (disclaimer in case my husband or those who are fire-knowledgeable are reading- YES, I realize that is just a trailer and not a ‘real’ fire engine. But it’s what I saw. sheesh.)

The cool thing about the town is that the factory, theme park, etc… it’s all right there in the middle. As it should be, I think!

 

The hotel (pictured below) looked mighty grand too. Worth the $350 for one night on a random Wednesday night in April? I’m thinking not. I was so happy with the place in northern PA that we stayed at (for less than 1/3 the price!) there’s no way I could have justified that expense to myself. Still- looked grand and luxurious all the same. They had gardens up there I would have liked to see- but ran out of time.

We only drove around for about 10minutes- but really did seem like a nice little town. I did not smell the chocolate in the air like some claimed I would. Still… a cute place to visit. I will say this- their website was a total nightmare to navigate. I couldn’t get a real ‘feel’ for what I was going into, how big, how long, what was offered… I just couldn’t wrap my head around what I needed to see and do. Or if I’d have to pay to park, or if I could walk anywhere, etc… no, the Hershey, PA website (for Hershey visitor stuff) is not good.

Luckily my instincts told me that what Elizabeth and I really wanted was “chocolate world”, a place devoted to all things Hershey chocolate with a little ‘tour’ and shopping and eating. Good thing I was right. That was just the place for us quickie visitors.  I don’t want this post to get much longer! so many pics! So, I’ll share all about that (and a prize!) tomorrow…