October 23, 2003 - Front Royal, VA - 2 (Hershey, PA and surrounding area)

Ah, yes.  "To Do" list be danged, Bill and Carol are leaving tomorrow, and we all wanted to see how much free chocolate we could mooch anyway.  Good shot of the back of Bill's head.

Factory tours are simulated, and you get into this little car that takes you on the tour.  Mock-ups of the actual process, but they did have the genuine smells!  This was showing the area that the cocoa beans come from.  20 degrees either way from the equator.  And since it's 45 degrees outside and blowing about 20 mph, the equator has some appeal to me at the moment!

The little tour didn't have many photo ops, but Bill managed to take a shot of us letting my banana split settle.  At least the part of it that Barb didn't eat.  The story of Hershey is a great one.  Milton S. Hershey quit school after the 4th grade to become an apprentice at a small newspaper in Lancaster.  He failed.  It was a print shop and he was clumsy at hated the work.  He soon got fired after dropping his straw hat in the printing press.  Then he went to a candy factory and learned how to make candy.  So later (around 1875 or so), he decided to set himself up in the candy and confectioner's business in Philadelphia.  He failed, so he tried again--in Denver, New York, Chicago, New Orleans.  And failed--again and again.  He returned to Lancaster and, with the knowledge that "fresh milk makes good candy," pursued yet another venture making a "melt in your mouth" caramel candy made with milk.  A single large order from an English candy importer prompted a loan from a local bank.  The bank's cashier was so impressed by Hershey that he backed the loan himself with his own signature.  From that point on, he became extremely successful.  The Hershey factory was established just after the turn of the century and, by 1905, was the world's first chocolate factory.  It remains the world's largest.   The process for making chocolate came from the Swiss--mixing milk with chocolate.  Needed lots of cows, and that's one reason he came back here.  Had a time of it getting the Amish to sell him their milk for candy--candy wasn't good for kids.  Got married when he was 42, she was 26.  Couldn't have any kids so decided to focus on educating orphan boys.  Today the Milton S. Hershey school is still doing that, only it expanded to include any financially disadvantaged kid, boy or girl.  He donated his entire $60 million estate to the school.  It's sitting on 10,000 gorgeous acres and, when a student is accepted (between the ages of 4 and 16), all their needs are taken care of by the school--clothing, food, medical, dental, lodging, everything.  This is just part of this fascinating story and one worth pursuing if you're so inclined.

Bill, Carol and Barb on the trolley that will be taking us on a tour of the town of Hershey.  When the factory was being built, lots of rocks were in the soil, so he hauled them a little ways away, and had affordable houses built for his workers.  Affordable meant that they only paid for the actual cost of the building.  No profit to the company.  There are still lots of houses built of stone, and some of them are really nice.

The Kiss was made because Mr. Hershey wanted to make sure there was a penny candy for the kids.  It was called a kiss because that's the sound it makes when the machine spits them out onto the conveyer belt.  And there's what most the country around here looks like.  Corn fields and cows, with plenty of nice trees.  Oh, yeah, that's a street light in the shape of a kiss; actually, there's a whole street of them.

After the tour, showing off our haul of free candy.  Yeah, we had to pay for the tour, but the candy was free.  0 to 72 miles per hour in 2 seconds, and then it'll flip you upside down, run you through a corkscrew, and just generally make you wonder if you're going to launch all that candy you ate, or if you're even going to live through the experience.  Some roller coasters are worse than others.  I used to enjoy them, but not any more.  Hersheypark is a theme park, full of rides and the amusement kinds of things you'd expect.  It was closed when we were there, but we wandered where we could.

The old corn decorations were being enjoyed by the squirrels, and the old foggies were enjoying the bench.

The opportunity to spend money and satisfy a sweet tooth is all around.  And there's the bag ladies.

We all had to pose appropriately, of course.  Even if it did mean stepping over the ropes to do it.  Fun day.