August 19, 2014
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School starts next week?! Are you kidding me?! And how did Shaeleigh get to be a FIFTH GRADER?! Scary business man.
We went to Pennsylvania for vacation this year - Trains, Amish Countryside, Chocolate
I had decided to surprise the kids with the first motel we stayed out (a very cool motel where all the rooms were like train cars). However, Shaeleigh had it in her head that Ronks, PA was going to be like New York City - I guess after last year, this is her frame of reference for vacations. And so when we pulled up to this:
And kept getting closer:
Instead of surprise I got baffled.Shaeleigh: Wait... Wait... This is our hotel?
Me: Yes. It's like a train - get it?
Shaeleigh: Wait....
Me: Because we're in train country.
Shaeleigh: Hm. I thought it was going to be like a hotel.
That was our "room." The Southern. Inside the Southern things were a little tight but hey, an adventure is an adventure.
And they had bunk beds - two sets. They had a queen bed too (well, not really a queen - more of a small princess) that was supposed to be for Kenn and me. There was even a nice little curtain divider to keep the bunk bed creatures on their side of the train. However, Kenn had a Mountain Dew too close to bed time. Apparently he isn't qualified to be drinking the Dew past 9:00 pm and so he was all hyped up and wouldn't let me get any sleep. And so, I snuck over to one of the bunk beds. Then it started storming (big storm - thunder, lightning, lights flickering) and Chance snuck over to my bunk (which was barely big enough for me without him trying to squeeze me out).
Then it started raining on top of Kenn in the other "room" but despite there being two bunks free, he decides to stay in his room and whine. Then he starts snoring. Then Chance starts snoring. Good grief. So I sneak up to an empty top bunk while I ponder whether or not train motels are like motor home parks and will be easy targets for tornados and then just as I am drifting off to sleep HERE COMES CHANCE. Sigh....
But... rest is over rated. The motels had a most excellent "View Tower"
You can to climb up some pretty creepy mostly dark windy steps to get to the top BUT, the view was pretty cool:
Look closely and you can see Kenn:
Speaking of views - from the window of The Southern, we can a great view of the Strasburg Railway and the train came by every hour or so blowing it's horn.
I didn't realize how fun trains were. We took a 45 minute ride to no-where in particular. The train literally rides one direction for about 20 minutes then stops while the engine switches to the other side of the train and then goes back on the exact same track. The whistle blowing pretty much non-stop.
The Motel, the Strasburg train and three different train museums were just plopped right in the middle of Amish farmland - tobacco and corn mostly.
Nothing like driving over horse poo covered roads to keep the kids laughing.
Especially the boys.
We took an Amish buggy ride to tour a dairy farm (which was really interesting). There were two other families in the buggy with us so the driver put Chance, YiLin and the other boy up front with him. Shaeleigh rode with me and the other adults in the back. This put Chance right behind the horse, next to the driver and just far enough away from me to feel lose all sense of parental guidance. And so dear Chance entertained the entire lot of us by feeding the driver all the questions that had been burning in his 7 year old brain.
"Do you drive the wheels right over the poop or do you steer around it?"
"Why does the horse poop while it's walking?"
"Aw that stinks!! Is that horse making bonkies???" (bonkies = gas)
"We milked goats at camp, well, I didn't milk, I watched but it was gross, like shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, in a little line, but YiLin milked one, but it was gross and then I got tired of waiting so I went outside...."
Bu the driver was great. He laughed and kept teasing Chance about all the work he'd have to do if he were an Amish boy.
Shaeleigh also did not milk a goat during their week at Farm Camp together (the one week of the summer when there were all together at the same camp). She didn't even go into the barn because of the smell.
But speaking of smell.....
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... Hershey! Now THAT'S a good smelling town.
We had an excellent tour of the chocolate factory. So excellent that we toured it three times. It's a little ride-on tour with singing cows all singing a catchy little ditty that will stick in your head all day - especially if you take the tour three times and all three kids video tape it with their cameras and play it over and over in the car and the hotel and wherever you go for the rest of the trip.
But, it was fun.
We also saw a curious "4D Movie" about some little aliens that were trying to make the chocolate sour or something and so the giant Hershey bar people had to save the day. AND... we made our own chocolate bars.
Shaeleigh doesn't mind the smell of chocolate!
I believe that one is mine (dark chocolate, chocolate cookie pieces and other things....)
That one is Shaeleigh's - she went with the white chocolate. It was definitely fun.
After two nights in our train, we moved over to the Hershey Farm Inn which was about 2 minutes down the road (well, ten minutes if you get behind a buggy). It had the BEST breakfast buffet ever and a giant guy named Amos standing out front.
Every motel needs an Amos.
The second motel, like the Red Caboose, had a petting zoo area. It also had a little shopping area, two playgrounds, nice grounds to walk around AND, a pond for fishing. Their website mentions the pond so we brought along the kids' fishing rods that we've had for years (thank you Uncle Tommy!) but embarrassingly enough, never used. Shaeleigh's done some fishing at Pioneer Camp (she goes to all the interesting camps) but the boys have been wanting to go for ages. And so...
Can you see it? YiLin caught this massive catfish with a piece of chicken leftover from lunch. This one too:
We had some trouble with the chicken and fries as bait though because the fish kept just pulling them off the line. We had much better luck the second night when we switched over to these beef sticks that we'd bought at one of the shops.
It's not as easy to nibble a beef stick off the line.
Funny story about the beef sticks - they were like Slim Jims and the kids and I bought a whole bag because YiLin and Kenn in particular like Slim Jims (me too but not quite as much as YiLin and Kenn). After we got home, Kenn finished the rest of the bag and afterwards he looks down at the label. Third ingredient - Beef Lips.
And then it was back to Hershey to go to Hershey Park.
Driving the cars was the number one ride of the day. And the number 2, 3, and 4 ride (because when we first arrived it was nice and empty...)
Beyond that, the kids aren't much for the rides so I didn't get to test out any of the roller coasters. Maybe in a few years.
We did go on the Ferris Wheel and a train ride. And the boys rode a few of the other rides (YiLin rode a few by himself too). And we saw the sea lion show and played a lot of games. YiLin really wanted to go to the zoo that's connected to the park but Chance and Shaeleigh were exhausted so I promised him a trip to the zoo when we got home.
And so we headed out (after some ice cream and a few last games).
We squeezed in one last train museum before heading home the final day and I'm glad we did. We had gone to the model train museum earlier - tons of buttons to push to make the different trains go around. This time we went to the big train museum - mostly steam engines. We got to climb inside the various cars and learn a little about each one - very cool. And they had more model trains that the kids could play with and build.
All in all, it was a very relaxing and fun time.
Ah, summer... I will miss you.
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