Day 46 - Chocolate, Chocolate, Cars & Caves

---

Today was just a great day! We slept in a little as we are only 15 miles away from the action and nothing opens until 9:00. So we had a leisurely breakfast and hit the road about 8:30. Our first stop of the day was at The Hershey Story, The Museum on Chocolate Ave. We thought we would get to know a little about the founder and get some idea what it takes to make chocolate. We arrived at about 8:50, so we hung around for a bit waiting for them to open.

The museum was nice, but not as in depth as I had hoped. The building is 2 stories, but the actual museum only occupies the second floor. It went in a little to the early life of Milton Hershey, who started out as a caramel manufacturer with a dream to provide chocolate to the masses. Up until Hershey, chocolate was hand made and expensive, a treat only for the rich. Hershey's idea was to mechanize the process to be able to mass produce large quantities cheaply. He located his factory in rural Pennsylvania as a source of cheap land, plentiful labor, and nearby dairy farms. He would need only to import the cocoa and the sugar. Ultimately, he created another Hershey in Cuba where he owned the sugar plantation.

His story is the typical benevolent industrialist. He built the factory, set up the town, and wanted to have a better life for his workers, so he built parks and sports and recreation facilities and encouraged home ownership among his employees. He also founded the Milton Hershey School for Orphan Boys where he oversaw the education of orphan boys until his death. When he died, he left a $60 Million endowment for the school which is still in operation today, though it is now coed.

The museum also showed some of the earliest machinery used in making the actual chocolate, which is actually a little more difficult than I had realized. Evidently the roasted cocoa beans must be splintered apart and ground beneath granite wheels for 3-4 days before the chocolate is smooth. All the kisses had to be wrapped by hand until a complicated wrapping machine was invented. There was also a lot of examples of the early packaging and marketing along with a few of the failed products. Evidently, the Reese Peanut Butter Cup was also manufactured nearby at a competitors facility until Hershey eventually bought them out.

The Museum also has a hands on workshop for an additional charge where you can make your own chocolate product, but we just went for the museum part. When we finished with the museum, our next stop was Hershey's Chocolate World. Years ago, this used to be the Hershey Factory Tour where you could actually tour the factory where the chocolate was being made. Unfortunately, this has been replaced with a kind of Willy Wonka factory tour where you ride a car through a make believe factory with all kinds of fantastical machine to simulate each of the steps of the manufacturing process. It was fun, especially for the kids, but I would rather have toured the real factory. At the end, they did hand out fun size Hershey bars.

We also wanted to watch the 4D Chocolate Mystery movie, so we passed the time waiting for the movie to start in the gift shop, searching for the perfect t-shirt which, of course, we found. the 4D movie was fun, though it also was more geared for children. There were 3D glasses and effects with additional shakes, lights, water sprinkles and streamers. The screen character would interact with specific audience members making it even more fun for the children. We both had a good time.

Hershey's Chocolate World is located right outside the entrance to Hersheypark, and I guess is supposed to warm you up for the park. But Hersheypark is a 13 roller coaster amusement park, and we must be getting old, because roller coasters just don't have the same thrill for us as when we were younger - so we passed on Hersheypark and left it to the young ones.

Our next stop is in Hershey, but is not related at all to the park. It is the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Museum and our final car museum of this trip. Hershey is the location for one of the countries largest car shows every year, and evidently this is the museum that hosts it. The collection is very eclectic, but the common theme we saw was the placards tended to show the history of the car and how it ended up in the museum. There was a special show of "barn find" cars which I had expected to be totally unrestored, somewhat deteriorated cars that had been found in a barn after being abandoned for years.

But most of the "barn finds" in this display, were old cars that were typically owned by an elderly family member or someone they knew that was rarely driven and at some time, parked away. When the car was rescued, it was fixed mechanically and thoroughly detailed inside and out so that it looked almost new. Some of these cars were amazing, built in the 50's or 60's and in some cases barely driven with 10,000 or 20,000 miles since new. There were also some traditionally restored vehicles on loan to the museum and in the basement was a large collection of over a dozen full size buses from the teens to the 60's.

In the basement was also a model train layout with several trains operating at the same time. There were also many buildings and activities in the layout that you could operate with buttons along the edge of the tracks. And of course, there was a motorcycle display.

But the part of the museum I liked best was the Tucker exhibit. Most of the larger car museums seem to have their token Tucker to see, but this museum had a whole room dedicated to the Tucker. They had 3 cars in the building and one outside on display. They also had a lot of the prototype equipment. They had a whole display of prototype engines until they came up with the final design. They had an original GM front engine chassis, and the first prototype rear engine chassis. They had drawings and parts and accessories, some in their original boxes. And they had a recreated Tucker dealership with promotional marketing materials, models, posters, and brochures. It was really fun!

As we left the AACA Museum, we passed through the gift shop and fund just the perfect Tucker t-shirt. By now it was getting close to 3:00 and time to head over to our last stop of the day, Indian Echo Caverns. Luckily all of these attractions were within a couple of miles of each other, because in no time we were arriving at the caverns. Indian Echo caverns turned out to be the typical kind of Mom & Pop show cave that has been in operation by the same family since the 40's. The tour is also accompanied with some of the history and lore surrounding the cave. For this one, there was the Pennsylvania Hermit, William "Amos" Wilson who lived in this cave for 19 years and who eventually died in the cave back in 1821.

The cave is about 5 or 6 good sized rooms, with a small "lake" at one end. It's still active, so it's wet in spots, but there are only a couple of low hanging spots that are clearly marked with red lights. Ceiling heights are are around 30 feet in some of the rooms, so the formations are really quite large. I don't think there are any other show caves in the area, so for some of the tourists, this is the first cave they have ever seen. For us, we are long traveled cave experts, and this was a good, middle of the road show cave and we really enjoyed it.

By the time we finished Indian Echo Caverns, it was after 4:30 and getting time for dinner. I had looked at yelp, and there was supposed to be a great Mexican restaurant in neighboring Lebanon, PA. My mouth was watering for some enchiladas so we headed into town for dinner. When we turned the corner on 8th St in Lebanon, we realized that the food might be good, but this was the Mexican restaurant in the Mexican downtown neighborhood and it didn't look any too inviting for us, and certainly nowhere to leave an unattended motorcycle on the street. So we abandoned that idea, and stopped at the Ruby Tuesday on the way back to the hotel. The food was fine, maybe not as good as the Mexican place, but the bike was still there and still in one piece when we were done.

Tomorrow we are off to Dover, DE, one of Jody's childhood homes. We will also be making a stop at some of the Delaware beaches looking for sea glass for some of Jody's next jewelry projects.

65.5 Miles Today

6995.8 Miles Total

4.273 Gallons Today

177.273 Gallons Total

---