Westward Ho!

Heading west in a sort of zig zag pattern. Going from Virginia to Pennsylvania, then to Chi-town  via Canton, OH, then down to Wichita, KS via St Louis, then back north to Minneapolis and hopefully from there straight west. Got a few more genealogy stops and a couple more kids and grandkids to see before we're done.

This park has been fantastic and a complete surprise. The first night, Thursday, they provided a free hot dog dinner with beans, cole slaw and dessert. They do free waffle breakfasts EVERY morning, and then on Sunday they brought in a food truck that cooked up burgers (all different varieties), fries, chicken strips, salads, with all the fixins and the park provided drinks....all FREE.

There was also a bounce house, face painting, and a guy making balloon animals for the kids. You would think that for all that they would jack up the prices for sites, but they didn't. We still got the Good Sam discount and they offer others as well. The park is plenty big too...about 200 sites and some of them are seasonal. We met lots of people who are repeat visitors. During NASCAR season they provide a shuttle bus to and from the track in Richmond for a nominal fee and people can bring their own food. The owners of this park own 8 others around the country (one in Indio, CA!) and they all do similar things for their guests. We would come here again.

 These  bikes are used throughout for decorations.

This is the new Marine Corp Museum at Quantico, VA.

We stopped in Harrisburg and had planned on going up to McKean County to do some research, but we hadn't been able to get any response from the historical society up there to indicate that the trip would be worth making. The society is only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 and they weren't answering their phones on Tuesday or returning calls. Seemed a little iffy. Guess we'll leave that piece of research for someone else to do.

Bruce had an opportunity to meet for lunch with a former co-worker from EDS/HP on Wednesday and I got a couple of loads of wash done. Then we decided to go to Hershey. There is a museum called Hershey Story that tells the whole story of how it all started.  This is a company-town success story that's still going.

All the street lights are Hershey Kisses, either wrapped or unwrapped.

Cute!

Of course there are cool street signs.

This is the Hershey Hotel. Very large!

Reese's started about the same time as Hershey here and was eventually brought into the company.

Milton Hershey started Hershey Industrial School in 1910 for orphan boys that is a private boarding school now (K-12) for children from families of lower income at no charge.  Now Milton Hershey School, it is the nation's biggest and wealthiest boarding school. The campus is over 2,649 acres, Google it! I think we need more of these!

This is an old wooden rollercoaster inside Hershey Park, which was not open when we were there. It's only open on weekends now.

What a maze of wood and track!

Hershey Park from near the school.

Moving on to Ohio next. No research here, just friends to visit.