One of the things I wanted to do with this trip was make
sure we always had something for DH to look forward to. And this was one of those days – we were
headed to Hershey, Pennsylvania!
DH has been doing much of the driving on this trip as he’d
rather drive than navigate, but I didn’t want him to do all the driving, so as
we were leaving from Lake Katrine, it looked pretty straightforward, at least
until we got to Pennsylvania, so I took the first leg of the day. Just after we entered Pennsylvania, I stopped
at the welcome station for a rest break and then DH was ready to drive
again. We didn’t realize it, but our route
on US 209 was taking us right through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area. We saw the brown signs after we
were on the road, but I hadn’t researched it like I had the Kancamagus Highway
through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, so we missed a couple of spots
that might have been fun to look at (waterfalls, scenic vistas). In fact, it wasn’t until we stopped at the
next Pennsylvania Welcome Center that we realized what, exactly, we had been
traveling through.
For most of this trip, we have stayed off the interstate
highways until they were the same roadways as the other highways (I’m looking
at you, North Carolina, where this seems to happen a lot!). But for this day, the more direct route was
by interstate highway, so we took that over to Hershey.
We were staying at the Hotel Hershey, a historic hotel from
the 1930s, that serves as a landmark and icon for Hershey tourism there. We had been to Hershey several years ago and
looked around the hotel and thought we’d enjoy a chance to stay there if we ever
went back. We didn’t actually think we’d
ever go back, so when we were able to add it to our itinerary, we booked a room
type that would guarantee we would stay in the historic section of the hotel.
We got checked in but before we had bell services and valet
assist us, we decided to drive down the hill to Chocolate World. This is where you can do several interactive
things, shop, and eat. We hadn’t had
lunch and hadn’t figured out dinner, so we decided to just get something from
the food bar there. And a chocolate
milkshake! We picked up some t-shirts
and several of our favorite Hershey brand candy which we then had to figure out
how to keep from melting before we get it home!
Back to the hotel where it was lovely to have someone else load the luggage cart and haul our stuff up to our room. And Maisy enjoyed having valet parking for the night, too. Our room was well appointed and comfortable, although the bathroom was pretty small as is the case in many historic hotels. There were chocolate kisses on the pillows, and later in the evening, they offered turn-down service where they bring you even more chocolate kisses! They also give a full-size Hershey bar at check-in. And they provide bottled water in the in-room refrigerator, and if you want more, you just call the front desk and they bring it to you. They provide slippers and a robe for use, too – the slippers, of course, are yours to keep, so we did!
We walked around the hotel and out into the gardens that are
part of the hotel property. There is
also a Hershey Gardens that is just down the hill that they give you tickets
for that we went to the next day. (They
also give you tickets to the Hershey Museum downtown, but we had visited that
when we were there before, so we didn’t bother to go over. But it is worth doing at least once if you go
and have never done it before.) The whole
place was beautiful and felt so glamourous!
The next morning we checked out of the hotel, and again, it was so nice to have someone else take our things down and tetris it into the car! And they offered us more bottled water to take with us for the drive!
The flowers in the gardens were beautiful, too. One of my favorite activities on this trip
has been to visit gardens – I guess if you’ve been following along, you’ll
already know that! #flowersmakemehappy. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.
~ Cindy D.
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