Day 12- Nov. 16 Hershey, PA

Differences between east coast and west coast-


On the east coast, the oranges taste as bitter as grape fruit, there is no Real Foods Mayo, they hunt groundhogs, AND THERE ARE NO MAPLE BARS!!!!


It is the maple syrup capitol and they don't have maple bars!?!


There is a Dunkin Donuts about a mile from my brother's house, so this morning on our way to fun, I decided to stop and get a really healthy breakfast. My mouth was watering for a maple bar and large milk. I pulled up to the drive through and with great enthusiasm ordered my maple bar and milk. There was silence for a second followed by a young lady saying, "We don't make maple bars." I beg your pardon? HUH??? How can you be a donut shop and not have maple bars? I was then informed by my brother that they don't eat them over here. I can't believe they don't eat them when they love syrup. SO I had to settle with a ham, biscuit, and milk.


After I ate my healthy breakfast, we headed for Chocolate town USA!!! Otherwise known as Hershey, PA. Today was a true brother/sister day, except now that we are adults we actually get along and have fun together.

After taking this picture in front of the Hershey sign, we rounded the corner and saw the one and only FUDRUCKERS!! We both said, "Oh, my gosh!" We both remember going there as kids and having burgers and hot dogs. We had to continue our healthy eating and step back in time and re-live the moments!!

After our great lunch, we headed to Chocolate World!!! I was floored at this place. It was like being at Disneyland. We were there during the slow times so there were no waits and the parking lots were huge expanses of concrete. I had no idea that Mr. Hershey was so giving to the people. It said from day one, he took the rock from the land he built the plant on and used it to build houses his workers could live in. He then built an entire city for them and their families to live in. When he and his wife couldn't have kids, they built a school for orphaned boys. The school is still around today, but the acceptance rules have changed. What a giving person and look what all he got back!!!!! Those that give are handsomely rewarded!!!

This next picture is from the manufacturing line. Those are all chocolate kisses!! They can produce 60 million pieces a day. That means they use 1 million gallons of milk a day. Those are going to be some utter sore cows pumping out all that milk! I wonder if they have genetically engineered cows that produce milk faster.

How could I pass up something as cute as this!?! I just love it. True character!!! All the street lights looked like this. Maybe I should come up with something like this for my house for the holidays.

This is a ginger bread house that they are building at Chocolate World. The gal said they have been working on it for a week. They have a lot left to do too!!! It was about 100 square feet and maybe 15 feet tall. ALL CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!

Look at all those chocolate bars!!!!!!!!! And those kisses on top were probably a foot tall by a foot wide. You could smell it from 15 feet away.

Here is the front.

We had to have a little fun in the gift store.

While at the factory, we learned the proper way to taste chocolate. So here is your lesson for the day-

Step one- Listen to the chocolate. If you break it next to your ear, you can hear the amount of milk there is in the chocolate by the sound of the break. A lot of milk has a soft sound. Almost can't hear it break. Dark chocolate has a loud cracking sound when it breaks. Let my model demonstrate...

Step two- smell the chocolate. Does it smell like dirt, fruit, butter, milk, carmel...? The different smells come from the plants that grow around the cacao beans. The darker the chocolate, the more you smell the ground around it.

Now, everyone's favorite part, taste the chocolate. The proper way to taste chocolate is to put a piece on your tongue and circle your tongue around on it. The different areas of the tongue have different parts that it tastes, so you want to get all flavors. The back of the tongue tastes the bitterness, the tip tastes the sweetness, the front sides taste the salt and the rest tastes all the other flavors.

Well, we had a great day in Hershey!! We had to head back early so Keaton could get to work on time for his all-night shift. YIKES!! I don't envy him!!

I could only get the beginning of the sunset because we were limited on time but here is what I got. AHHHH...

As I sit here writing this, the neighbors above are clearly having a huge dance party. Should I go tell them to shut up or join them? Hmmm... I think I'll opt for the third option of going to bed. Good night :)