Day 13, 14 & 15: Hershey, PA, Omish Country and arrived in DC

The next leg of our journey bring us to Hershey, Pennsylvania, "the sweetest place on Earth!".  We stopped at Chocolate World on our way in--kind of Hershey's welcome center.  There you can ride a ride that takes you through the candy-making process and get a free piece of candy at the end of the ride. (Lily and Carson rode it 4 times!)  They also have a 4-D movie where the candy solves a mystery.  I thought it was cute but everyone else thought it was dumb!  There are souvenirs of all kinds--t-shirts, stuffed animals, candles and any kind of Hershey-made candy you can think of--in any size you can think of!  It is a sweet-lovers paradise!  We decided to try our hand at the "Create Your Own Candy Bar" attraction.  We had to wear aprons and hair nets (and a beard net for Kevin's goatee to go!) and we got to pick via a computer screen what type of chocolate we wanted and what fillings such as butterscotch chips, pretzel pieces, almonds and toffee bits.  You could also select to have yours with or without sprinkles.  After that, you went into the room where the candy bars were being made on an assembly line and you got to see your bar being made.  When it was at a certain station, your name would light up in front of it.  Then we got to design our own packaging for our bar, watch it being boxed up and put in our personalized tin.  It was a highlight for the kids!  Here are some of the pics from Chocolate World.

 

 

That night we used our preview pass from staying at the Hershey campground to go to Hershey park for a couple of hours.  We did get a couple of the big rides out of the way before closing and caught the shuttle back that night.  We spent all day at the park on Tuesday and got in an hour early because we were staying at their campground. (also got discounted park tickets--pays to go Hershey!! :)  For all you thrill seekers, Hershey Park has 9 large roller coasters!  They have some of the scariest roller coasters I've seen!  The first one I rode got up to speeds of 75 mph and it was downright painful!  I needed a chiropractic adjustment afterwards!  We played a lot of games and enjoyed the food which is pretty good for an amusement park--especially the Reeses Extreme Funnel Cake and the Reeses smores!  YUM! 

Today we left Hershey and made a stop in Intercourse, PA which is in the heart of Amish country.  We saw many horse and buggys on the roads and endless corn fields.  We shopped in the Kettle Kitchen Village and Lily and Kevin bought some produce from an Amish girl in front of her farm.  Lily loved that! 

We are staying right outside of Washington, DC tonight and planning to go in to DC in the morning.  Friday we are headed home!  I do miss my kitty cats! It has been a fun trip but there's no place like home!



 

 

Day 10, 11 and 12: New York City! (and Mystic, CT)

So on our way to New York, we added two more state stickers to the RV. Rhode Island and Connecticut.  In CT, we stopped for a while in Mystic where the film "Mystic Pizza" was filmed in the 80's and pretty much kicked off Julia Robert's career.  So we had to eat at the real Mystic Pizza of course!  The restaurant has photos from the movie all over the walls and you can catch the movie (they run it constantly on a loop!) from one of the many TVs in the restaurant.  The pizza was very good!  It was a neat place to see and the seaport town of Mystic is a very quaint, cute little town.

     That night we checked in to our RV park in New Jersey (pretty much a gravel lot!) across the river from the city.  Our biggest challenge while here has been figuring out all the trains and subway.  Because we are in Jersey, we have to switch trains to get into NYC and to get home at night.  We got on going the wrong way a couple times!  Fortunately, most of the good people of  New York were glad to help us out and get us on the right train!  We also walked, and walked, and walked....a lot.  All of our feet are sore! (even after the foot massages we got in Chinatown!)
Friday we saw "Wicked" on Broadway.  It was so good!  We just loved it.  We had amazing seats and it was just a great time had by all.   That day we had lunch at Carnegie Deli.  They have the best reubens we have ever had!  And they are gigantic!  Lily and I split one and were still stuffed! 
We also had a nice rickshaw ride around Central Park.  It is such a beautiful place and so many movies have had scenes filmed there like "Enchated", "Spiderman 3", "Ransom" and "Home Alone 2" to name a few.
Saturday we went to Chinatown, ate some Chinese food and shopped a little.  That night we were surprised at Tony DiNapoli's by our friends, Jim and Lisa Wilkins.  They knew we were going there for dinner and they had to come to Long Island for a function, so they spent last night in the city to have dinner with us. What a treat!  Tony's is family style Italian food and it was so good!  We tried a little bit of everything and Jim and Lisa really know what to order!
Today the kids and Kevin rented bikes and rode around Central Park while they gave me a little shopping time!  Yippee!  I hit Sak's, Zara and H&M before meeting back up with them.  We rode the train to Hoboken to try to catch a glimpse of the Cake Boss, Buddy, at Carlo's Bakery, but the wait just to get in the door was 2 hours!  They said it is pretty much always like that.  Oh well, no cake, just a picture of the sign! 

We came in early tonight--we have been getting back to the RV around midnight while in NYC--so we could rest and get ready for the trip to Hershey, PA tomorrow.  I think our feet will thank us for the day off!  Here are some photos from our time in New York:

 

 

Carnegie Deli coconut cream pie!

 

Our special visitors!

 

Day 8 & 9: Boston

Well, our first experience with Boston was getting stuck for two hours in it's traffic!  Our 3 hour trip from Portland took almost 6!  And it poured rain most of the time so needless to say, our spirits were a little dampened by the time we got here.  We decided to get a rental car because our campground was about 40 minutes outside of Boston.  Tired and hungry, we decided to drive to nearby Plymouth for dinner.  Great idea!  What a cute waterside town.  And of course, home to Plymouth Rock where the Pilgrims landed in America in 1620.  We ate at Cabby Shack's on the outside deck with a view of the harbor at sunset--just gorgeous!  Cabby's has been awarded many times for their clam chowder on the food network and we all agreed, it was well deserved!
In Boston, we drove from our campground to the train station and used that to maneuver around town. It kind of reminds you of NYC in places.  The kids really wanted to go to the museum of science so we spent a couple hours there and then we just walked around and took in the city.  Boston Commons Park was a highlight.  It was kind of like a smaller version of central park and the squirrels were very friendly!  My kids absolutely loved feeding the squirrels.  We travel to Boston to spend time feeding the North Carolina State mammal!  It was fun though, and they were very cute and curious.  I think Lily could have spent all day there!
We fought the crowds on the subway to make it to Fenway Park where we promptly bought our Red Sox gear so we fit in with the Boston fans, and so many of them!  There were so many people there, and on a Wednesday night!  Boston takes their baseball seriously.
We had the traditional fare--hot dogs, pizza and peanuts.  It was an exciting experience but Boston was losing 3-1 in the 7th inning so we decided to beat the crowds to the subway and headed out.  Between the trains and the drive back, it was midnight when we got to bed!  Today we are driving to NYC by way of Rhode Island and Connecticut (have to get those stickers!).  We hope to catch a meal at Mystic Pizza on the ride.  Thanks for tagging along!  Here are some photos...

 

Red Sox game!

 

Day 7: Portland, Maine

Portland is such a beautiful city!  We checked into our campground, Wassamki Springs, which is on a huge lake.  The kids enjoyed swimming in a lake for the second time in one day while Kevin and I pulled tag-team duty on the tremendous pile of laundry we had accumulated!
The next morning we had a cab drop us off in the heart of the city by the docks.  It was really cool there, with parts of the city looking like another era in time.
One quest was to try a lobster roll or rolls.  I had heard about them but had never had one so our fist stop was a restaurant on the waterfront called The Porthole.  We tried a classic lobster roll and their special lobster roll.  They were yummy, especially the classic.  We all liked that one the best.
Next we made reservations on a trolley tour which included a visit to Head Light, their most photographed lighthouse.  While waiting for our tour time, we put a lock on their "fences of love".  People write the names of their loved one or ones on the lock, the date and then lock it on the fence and take the key.  Very sweet!  (Here we are with our lock!)

 

Our tour was very interesting and throughout the day we had chowder in bread bowls (Lily's special request) and more lobster rolls.  By dinner time the kids were sick of seafood so we had burgers at Five Guys!  We did some walking around and some souvenir shopping and then after dinner, made our way, too pooped to party, back to our campground.  Here are some of the photos from the day--hope you enjoy!

 

 

Day 6: Vermont and on to Maine!

We spent this morning enjoying the campground we are staying at in Vermont.  They have a beautiful lake with boats and canoes to enjoy.  Kevin and the kids played in the lake while I, as usual, was the staff photographer from the sidelines!  It was a nice morning and a little break from driving!  We are leaving soon and driving to Portland.  According to the GPS, it is about 4 and a half hours from here.  Here are some of the pictures from this morning.