Hershey and Pennsylvania

THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT THE AMUSEMENT PARK AND ALL THINGS CHOCOLATE!!

Thought I would give the preface so if you are looking for more about the amusement park, you have come to the wrong place.

We took a trip up to Lancaster, PA in October of 2018. My grandmother was born there and with her passing in 2018, I want to explore Pennsylvania, since neither one of us had been. When we set off, I had no plan. No hotel room, not destination other than the town of Lancaster, PA and no agenda. I figured my grandmother would speak to me and we would figure it out. If you know me, this is completely out of character.

When my grandmother passed away, a small piece of me died that hot day in June. I wrote a blog about her shortly after her passing here. 2018 was a hard year solely for this reason. So I set out to learn more about her.

What a disastrous idea. I will NEVER do that again. I’ll go back to Pennsylvania but I will never go on a trip that isn’t at least half way thought out. When we got to Lancaster, it was more city than I had anticipated. I hate driving in cities. They are the worst. I can parallel park but barely. We found a place to park and found a bar to figure out our next steps. We came across Spring House Brewing Co. Smaller bar in the middle of it all. They did not have any ciders so I ordered a rum and coke. Ryan tried a few beers. After sitting and relaxing for a little while I turn around an a SHUFFLE BOARD is right there. How I missed it when we came in is beyond me. What’s the significance behind a shuffle board? Well apparently my grandfather, my paw-paw, my granny’s husband, was killer at shuffle board. He drank A LOT but somehow manage to always play an amazing game of shuffle board, EVERY TIME!! I saw this as a sign, so we decided to pay our tab and adventure through town a little bit more. We came across a very popular indoor market. Lots of Amish with butters and hand-made items. Lots of fresh meats and cheeses. It was very awesome experience.

This is where things started to get sour…. Found a Country Inn and Suites at Union Deposits. Make a reservation through Booking.com while we were at the market and headed that way to check in. There was a line at the counter when we arrived and they seemed unpleased. There were lots of girls running around and apparently it was a weekend of some cheer competition. After waiting in line for over 30 mins we finally got to the front desk and were told THERE WERE NO MORE ROOMS. What the what?? We booked it here and here is our reservation number. They were overbooked that evening and there were no more rooms. Horrible - both Ryan and I were tired and just wanted a shower and to rest our head. By this time it was already 8pm and we were hungry and just done. We ran into a similar situation upon check in with a long line and an exhausted front desk clerk. We finally made it to the clerk after another 30 mins or so of waiting. We had a room! The hotel was nice and clean. There were lots of kids but we didn’t care. We ordered room service and passed out.

We went downstairs in the morning to get breakfast and were bombarded with fellow travelers looking to do the same. We heavy annoyance we both agreed to find a local spot. After traveling up and down Route 422 (East Chocolate Ave) we FINALLY found this super cute hole-in-the-wall breakfast spot. We almost missed it because it is so tucked back off the main route. Phillip Arthur’s Cafe “Hershey’s classic Cafe Featuring Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Old Fashioned Ice Cream. BYOB. Homemade Waffles, Omelets and Egg Dishes. Great Salads, Designer Sandwiches and Brick Oven Pizza. Affiliated with Fenicci's of Hershey, Hershey's Oldest Restaurant since 1935”. Yall! This place is amazing. Not only great food and great prices but the owner, Phillip Arthur of course, actually gives a crap. He was there shaking customers hands and helping out in the kitchen. The food was AH-MAZE-ZING.

We moved on from to, you guessed it, Hershey’s Chocolate World!

This place is candy overload, of course. Every kind you can thing of made by the Hershey Company is there. They even have this cute roller coaster ride in the place that takes your through how things are made. You don’t actually see how anything is made because nothing is made at this site but it was neat to learn about Hershey products.

We then headed to Gettysburg, PA. We found Reid’s Winery and Cider House. Just being on Baltimore Street in Gettysburg was really a neat experience even if we didn’t have time to look at any historical stuff.

We definitely want to go back despite the initial setbacks. We want to head to Gettysburg to see more history and of course, go back and see our friend Phillip.