Chocolate World & Gettysburg
Posted by Donna on September 22, 2009
22 September 2009 – Day 4 of Motherdear and Ronald’s Great Adventure
Greetings travelers!
Today’s entry will be short (hopefully). The laundry is in the dryer and I hope to finish this entry at about the same time the laundry finishes. Then I’ll read for a bit then get to bed.
Another great day with my mother. That’s what today was!
We started at Hershey’s Chocolate World. We went on the 15-minute ride to learn about the chocolate making process. Very interesting. I can’t even say that the best part was the free mini Kit Kat bar we got at the end! 
Next we did a bit of shopping in the store. We tried a sample cookie and an elderly gentleman asked me if I was sneaking a free sample. I told him I was. I lifted the lid on the sample dish and he reached up for his own. The younger man with him (I assumed grandson, but who knows? Well, they know, of course, but did anyone else?) told me that the older man was a retired dentist with a sweet tooth. So if you catch me eating cookies… just remember that Dr. Nielson thought it was okay.
Motherdear was a bit worn out at this point so we took a break for about 20-minutes and just watched people walking by. Next we attended Hershey University to earn our degrees in chocolate tasting. Sweet, huh?
It was around noon time when we left Hershey and headed to Gettysburg. We arrived at the location of the tour bus company that we wanted to use at 12:58 p.m. The tour bus was waiting. We quickly went inside, bought our tickets, and climbed to the upper level of the double-decker bus. We didn’t even have time to pee before we left.
The two-hour tour was very interesting. It was an audio tour of the battle at Gettysburg. Every so often the tour bus driver would interrupt the audio track to point out something specific that we were passing. It was very interesting.
Okay… just got back from getting my laundry… time to finish this up.
After Gettysburg we began the long, long, long drive to Tennessee. It was 4 p.m. I plugged Gatlinburg, TN into the GPS. According to it, we would arrive at our destination at 12:15 a.m. Ha! Not likely. But with that as our destination, we knew we’d be going in the right direction.
My tentative goal was to drive til approximately 6 p.m. then find a hotel in Virginia for the night. At 4:48 p.m. (if I remember correctly… I forgot my notes in the car), we finally left Pennsylvania and crossed into Maryland. Ten minutes later we crossed into West Virginia.
I love West Virginia. The speed limit is 70!
A short time later we crossed into Virginia. Also noted that Rte 81 covers 324 miles in Virginia. Ugh. We’d having to travel the entire length of it. Beth warned me that Virginia is a heck-of-a-long state to drive through. ha ha
I was getting tired but was determined to break the 300 mile mark. We saw several signs for hotels that are part of the Marriott chain (my mother gets a great price on very nice rooms) but they were at the 300+ mile marks so we kept going.
Then we saw it… a sign for Fairfield Inn (Marriott family) at mile 298. Yup, we swung off the high way, got a room, and are settled in for the night.
Once here I did a two mile run on the treadmill. Wanted to go swimming but the pool is tiny, tiny. After my shower I decided to do laundry since we knew this hotel had an onsight washer/dryer and there’s no guarantee the next one will.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it… tomorrow will be a long day of driving. We have 298 miles of Virginia to cover and then 118 miles of Tennessee to reach the Smoky Mountains. Google maps says it will take us 6 1/2 hours. That’s pretty much what my GPS said, too. Guess that’s about what it will be then.
By the way… several people have asked how Gerry and Sean are doing at home. Just fine, thank you. They’re quite up to the task of taking care of themselves.
Hugs,
–Donna
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