Hershey RV Park, Lebanon PA 09/30/12 - 10/18/12

We're on the road again!  We stayed one night in a nice quiet Walmart in Weston, WV, and then traveled through Maryland to get to Lebanon, PA, to our next campground.    

 

The trees are really starting to change colors along the roads in West Virginia.  From this picture  (taken through our front window) you may be able to tell that we have traveled a couple of days from the amount of bug juice on our windshield.

The Thousand Trails Hershey RV Park is really pretty.  It has a big lake and lots of grass and trees.  We really enjoyed our stay here.  It is the first TT park we have been in since last season.  There is certainly a different feeling at our own membership parks, even though they now let in the public for camping.  There were still a lot of home state (PA) people there, but it seemed to be there were more RVers instead of mostly families just camping.  But, we never saw anyone else from Idaho! 

It rained quite a bit the first week we were at Hershey, so we did more inside things--baking, sewing, reading. . .

. . . and Terry's favorite inside pastime--eating and watching TV!  We did have a great craft fair here at the park and sold seven Scentsy warmers, which was good for us.  In the Indian Trails Park in Colona, IL, the first of September, a neighbor camper came over and asked about Scentsy because of the sign on our car.  She ended up buying out our whole inventory, leaving us with two warmers and six fragrance bars!  We couldn't believe it.  For a while, we considered not selling Scentsy any more.  But, I couldn't do it.  We ended up re-stocking and got six UPS packages here at Hershey Park--just in time for the craft show!

A lot of RVers travel with pets.  When outside, they all have to be contained on leashes.  So, it was not unusual to see this gal with her little pets on their leashes as we passed them.  When we drove by, I realized these were really cute, unusual "puppies."  We backed up our car and asked if we could take a picture of them. 

Yes, these "puppies" were actually bunnies!  They were so cute.  She said that the black and white one didn't like the leash very well, the the little brown and white one didn't mind it at all.  Also, one day we saw a couple walk by with their dalmatian dog and she was wearing little pink boots on her feet.  I am not sure if she had tender feet or if it was to keep her feet clean when she got back in their rig.

 It is always nice when a neighbor shares some firewood with us.  He had gone to a cabinet maker and got board ends.  Terry actually picked through them and saved some of the better pieces to make some woodies out of them.  They were nice wood!

Halloween decorating in the parks started the end of September and do they ever go all out!  There are big Halloween celebrations planned in this park, but we will be in Virginia by that time.  At night there are so many lights and decorations that it seems more like Christmas than Halloween.

Here are our fancy lights!  Terry actually got these (plus this many green lights) at a yard sale in Emmett last summer.  He really likes to put them out.  At first he just kind of outlined our rug with them.  They were all curled up and were easy to trip over them.  So, I convinced him to wrap them around our awning.  The only bad thing is that if the wind starts blowing, they all have to be taken down before we can put the awning up.  Maybe you can tell that I am not a real fan of these lights.

 

In all of the little towns around here, the houses are built very close together and right on the street--you step off of your porch onto the city sidewalk.  A lot of them are duplexes and some have been turned into businesses, but there are still a lot that are just homes.  I think that when the German immigrants settled here, the roads were a lot more narrow and these homes had a little bit of a yard in front of them.

There are lots of Amish and Mennonite people in this area and they have cottage businesses in their homes.  This cheese shop is a little bigger scale cottage business.  This Amish family has a small dairy in the back and they use their fresh milk to hand-make some of the best cheese.

 

Well, what would you imagine they make in Hershey, PA?  YES!  Hershey candy! 

I went to class at the "Hershey University" where the "professor" taught us all about the different cocoa beans, where they come from, how they grow and are processed, and then how they are used to make the chocolate.  We got to actually taste all of the different kinds of chocolate. . .

 

. . . and at the end of the class we received our official "Masters Degree in Chocolate Tasting."

We went on a trolley tour of the city of Hershey and learned all about Milton Hershey, the man who started the company.  His is an amazing story, and continues to go on even though he has been dead for many years.  During the tour, we were treated to various kinds of candy kisses.  Terry doesn't care for chocolate all that well, but I made sure he took his treat, which sometimes ended up in my mouth!

The Milton Hershey story is amazing.  He failed the first two times he tried to start a candy company.  Then he developed his own recipe for milk chocolate and started his first factory in the dairy land of Pennsylvania.  Up until that time, chocolate was a Swiss luxury product.  Hershey envisioned a complete community around his factory site. He built a model town for his employees that included comfortable homes, an inexpensive public transportation system, and a quality public school system.  Because he and his wife couldn't have any children, he started a school for orphan boys, and the Hershey Trust Fund still supports that school today, although it is not just for orphans or just boys any more. During World War II, Milton Hershey provided over 3 billion of the Ration D Bars and Tropical Chocolate Bars that were produced and distributed to soldiers throughout the world.

This is the Milton Hershey School that is still funded by the Company.  Kids between 5 and 18 come here and live in really nice homes with "house parents" and their education and everything else they need is provided for them at no cost.  They are screened to choose kids who are ambitious and would not have much of a chance to succeed in life without some help.

Milton Hershey started his candy making company in 1905.  He build this mansion for his wife, but she died four years later in 1915.  He moved into two rooms, where he lived the rest of his life, and he let the rest of his home be used as a country club for the golf course he had built for the community.  He died in 1945.

There are signs of the Hershey Company all over the town.  I really liked their street light covers!

 

Milton Hershey wanted recreational and cultural opportunities for the people so he built, what is now called, Hershey Park. It now has 12 roller coasters, plus other rides and cultural event centers. He left his fortune still funding his community.  I will never again eat a Hershey candy bar without thinking about Milton Hershey.

 

In this area of Pennsylvania there is a large population of Amish and Mennonite people, 76,000, mostly gathered in the communities of Bird-In-Hand and in Intercourse (yes, these are the real names of towns.)  We went on the "Amish Experience" where we saw a movie in a unique theater.  It was a story about a boy named Jacob who, at age 18, was trying to decide if he was going to continue the choice of living the Amish way of life.  The theater had stage scenes on three sides--a living room, a barn, and an outside scene.  Sometimes there were things going on in all of them at one time.  It was quite a show to see and it taught a lot about the Amish way of life.

We then went on a bus tour ride around the community.  A lot of Amish live in multi-family homes, sometimes with three generations in one home.  They just add on another wing to the house.  They don't send grandma and grandpa to the nursing home!

 

 The rule of the Amish is to not let anything into their homes that would detract from or take their family away.  That is the big reason for not using electricity--it brings too much of the world into their homes.  They do not use automobiles or bicycles because it is too easy to get too far away from home in a short time using them.  They turn bicycles into scooters, with no rubber tires.

They have no dryers in their homes so all of their clothes are hung outside--no mater what the weather.  They are usually hung on a line that comes out from a window on a pulley system so they can hang their clothes out and not get wet when it is raining.  I guess the clothes eventually dry.

They do have a telephone to share between several families. It is put in a little booth, usually out by the out buildings. They will have an answering machine and are allowed to use it an hour and a half a day, depending on what their Bishop allows.

The Amish family will usually have a windmill to bring water up from a well.  Some of them had an old tanker stood on end that they used for a water reservoir.

There farm equipment is usually pulled by horsed.  Once in a while you will see a tractor with metal wheels--none with rubber tires.

A typical farmer out working in his fields.  Sometimes they have a six-wide horse team.  They take very good care of their horses.  We were told that they sometimes buy retired race horses to pull their buggies.  Some of them are very "high stepping" and look really good.

 

The Amish won the authority to build and run their own schools.  They will build a one-room school house for every 20-30 kids.  The kids will walk or ride their "scooters" up to a mile to school.

Some of the cottage businesses of the Amish people include baked items.  One of their specialties is what they call Whoopie Pies.  They are so good.  We got an Amish recipe book from the tour guide and it has the recipe in it for Whoopie Pies.  I am anxious to try to make them.

Part of our tour was going through a model Amish home.  The guide told us all about this gas-motor wringer washing machine they use.  I told her that I got my arm stuck in the wringer part when I was about 5 years old while helping my mom with the family washing!  The only difference was that our washing machine was electric rather than gas.

I also learned to sew on my mom's treadle sewing machine as a young girl.  This Amish life doesn't seem so strange. 

 

We were shown the Amish clothing and how what they wear denotes how old they are, whether they are married, and other things that are going on in their lives--deaths in their family, etc.

A lot of the things the Amish do, wear the same clothes, have the same looking homes and possessions, even buried in the same homemade caskets, is because they are not to be prideful.  No one is better than another or have more than another.  They all help each other and stand together, and everything is about family.  I think they have some good things going for them!  

 

We had a great time at Hershey Park.  It could be one of our favorite TT parks.  Fall is certainly coming so we are getting a little anxious to get further south.  We are going to go to Gettysburg and just park in a Walmart while we see the sites, and then the next morning we are going to catch a tour bus to Washington DC.  There is so much to do and see!

Diamond Caverns RV Park, Park City KY, Eminence KY 9/24/01 - 10/1/12

 We left Missouri and headed for Kentucky.  Our parks are a little further apart in the middle states, so instead of having to pay for just a night's parking, we stayed in a Walmart in Sikeston MO.  Thank goodness for Walmarts.  But, on the other hand, we always have to go in shopping whenever we are there, so I guess it pretty much evens out..

 

The next day we crossed into Kentucky.  Right at the border is where the Ohio River merges into the Mississippi River.  It has been amazing to us to learn how much produce and products are shipped by barges on these rivers.  We were told that a tugboat can push enough barges at one time that would total over 90 semi trailers.  That would save a lot of diesel fuel!  

We saw our first cotton fields as we came into Kentucky.  It seems that each state has a little of their own uniqueness.  It made me think of some of the books I have read about the cotton pickers of Kentucky.

Diamond Caverns is the only park we have in our system in Kentucky.  We had a hard time getting in it because it is an Encore park, which is a sister park in our Thousand Trails group.  But, we can only stay in them for a about 20% less than the public (we would pay about $35/night, which doesn't fit in our budget too well when we are used to paying $0-$10/night.)   Even though this is also an RPI park--RPI is owned by the same company as Thousand Trails and Encore--we couldn't stay for the $10/night fee because of being Thousand Trail members.  But, we also belong to Coast to Coast, which is a different affiliate, so we sneaked in under them for $10/night, although Encore told me over the phone that we wouldn't be able to do that.  It gets kind of complicated playing these games, but it is the only way we are able to live this kind of lifestyle.  It is worth it!

We only stayed three days in this park--just long enough to catch our breath from all the activity in Branson.  It was a small little park and out of the way from towns of any size.  We cleaned the motorhome, Terry worked on some woody projects, and I got some sewing done.  It was kind of a nice, relaxing break.  The park had this unique miniature golf course.  It was made out of PVC pipe on concrete.  But, we were never ambitious enough to try it out.  After the three nights there, we headed to another Walmart--this one in Shelby KY.

 The main reason we went to Kentucky was to go to Eminence and try to connect with some family members of an Army buddy of Terry's that he was in Viet Nam with.  His name is Larry Shea and he died in Viet Nam a couple of months before both of their tours were up.  We drove to the Town Hall in Eminence and stopped at a monument business, trying to find out where Larry was buried, with no luck.  Finally, we got in touch with a gal whose husband was best friends with him in high school, and she remembered where he had been buried--in a different county.

 

We found his grave, which was right next to his mom's and stepdad's graves.  His grandmother is next to them and on the other side of his grave is a headstone for his brother, although he is still living.  It looked like all of the plots and headstones were acquired at the same time because they were all alike.  They all had flowers on them.  We thought that family must be nearby who put the flowers there, but then we realized that every grave in the small cemetery had flowers, so it may be the community or the person who takes care of it who puts flowers out. 

 

 Larry has a military plaque on his grave and it gave the date that he died and Viet Nam, and his rank in the Army.  It was pretty cool.  We left phone messages with the high school buddy and his wife that we would be in the Shelby Walmart.  They had been in Louisville all day and ended up stopping on their way home, but unfortionately, we missed them because we had gone to dinner.  Terry had talked to Larry's cousin quite a few years ago and we had his phone number.  But, like a lot of us, his phone was no longer in service and we assumed he had a cell phone.  We had spent a lot of time on the Internet looking for him and did find an old address in Eminence.  We went there and no one was home, but a neighbor confirmed that he still lived there and gave us his phone number.  So, we called him a couple of times and left messages and then went back to Walmart to spend the night. 

We had been told that Colonel Sanders had started his Kentucky Fried Chicken business in Shelby.  So, we checked it out and, sure enough, we found their original home and headquarters.

In 1968, Colonel Sander's wife opened the Claudia Sanders Dinner House.  The restaurant was in the building that was originally used as an office and warehouse for the famous Kentucky Fried Chicken operation.  She ran it for five years and then franchised it to Cherry and Tommy Settle.  It 1999 it was destroyed by fire, but was then rebuilt and added on to.

 

There is a great painting of Claudia and Colonel Sanders on the wall in the restaurant.

 

It is really quite a place.  They have four dinning rooms, with enough room to seat 700 people at one time!  Their specialties are fried chicken and country ham with eight famous vegetables.  We didn't order that meal, but the table next to us did.  She read off all of vegetables, and some of them I didn't recognize!

It made you feel like you were in some one's fancy Kentucky home eating dinner, and they treated you that way, too.

 

Kentucky has a lot of big ranches with a lot of open fields--which are usually mowed!  There is no irrigation systems.  They just rely on the weather to keep everything green.  I would think that the lawn mowing business would be a good one to be in.  There are lawn mower stores that sell nothing but lawn mowers, and most of them look like small tractors!

Horse ranches are pretty common in this area also.  Terry thought they would look better if they all had pretty white vinyl fences, but the fences were usually brown or black.

This is another beautiful ranch home.

 

The next morning, a Saturday, we took a flag and put it on Larry Shea's grave and then drove in to Eminece to try to catch his cousin at home.  He still was not answering his phone or returning our messages.   There was still no one home, so we decided to go back to Walmart, hook up, and head to West Virginia.  He had had our first "bad Walmart experience" the night before, with noisy cars and teenagers driving around the parking lot all night, a truck driver with his generator on, and some VERY early construction going on with paving the lot next to us.  We had never stayed at a Walmart on a weekend before and we decided we would try to avoid weekends in the future.

 As we traveled through the hills of Kentucky, we finally got a call from Larry's cousin.  His job had kept him busy until past midnight the night before, and he had to go back in early that morning.  So, he hadn't called us until in the afternoon.  We were all sorry we hadn't connected, but Terry felt good about getting to see where Larry had been buried and got to drive around the area where he had lived.  Maybe next time!