The majority of day 3 was spent at Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. It was so much fun! Not only did we get to eat tons of candy we did some other pretty cool stuff there too. After Hershey we headed towards New Jersey so we could spend the night and get up early to go to NYC the next day!
We got the Chocolate Enthusiast package so we could experience everything that Hershey had to offer. I highly recommend a visit to Hershey. It's delicious! ;)
Please ignore the blurriness of some of these photos. I didn't take my Canon in so I was just using my iphone. The first thing we did at Hershey was take the "Factory Tour." It was like a Willy Wonka type ride that you take through a fake Hershey factory but it was so neat and kind of magical!
Our next activity was a chocolate tasting class. We all sat in the very back row and my brother and I joked around the entire time while the lady was up front talking about cacao (Portlandia anyone?) It was hilarious...to me. I was the only person who has seen Portlandia I guess. Ha! Anyway, my brother and I goofed off the whole time and only liked 3 out of 5 of the chocolates we tasted. I'm not a big fan of Hershey's Special Dark or the Scharffen Berger? They were weird.
Next up was the 3D movie! It was pretty funny and it was the closest thing to actual 3D I've ever seen. Good job Hershey!
Next was the Trolley Tour around Hershey, PA. We got to drive by the real factory, Milton Hershey's home, the schools and some other important buildings from Milton Hershey's life. In case you were wondering Milton Hershey is the inventor of Hershey's chocolate (that's kind of a given) but did you know he actually was a caramel maker first? Yeah, crazy!
Our last event for the day was to make our own candy bars! Sounds super exciting huh?! Well, it was pretty cool but not as exciting as we would have hoped. Basically, you take your ticket and walk up to a computer screen, scan it and then pick your ingredients. I got white chocolate with almonds (there weren't many choices). Before you do that though they make you wear these aprons and hairnets. Ashley and I also had to wear rubber gloves because we had nail polish on. This made us think we were really going to get to work on our own candy bars but no...we just watched behind the glass as our candy bars rolled down a conveyor belt so I think the gloves were a bit unnecessary but oh well.
Once you pick your ingredients you go into the room where the bars are made and watch them go down the line and see your ingredients being added. Once they add those they all get coated in milk chocolate. So, basically I made a giant Hug with almonds. It was pretty good and you could tell the chocolate was super fresh! The last step is to design your own packaging. I opted for a simple design and each bar comes in a souvenir Hershey's tin!
After we made our candy bars we saw these guys walking around and my brother was so excited to take a picture with them. He got more excited than anyone I think! Haha! He's just a kid at heart.
Of course, Davy and I had to buy a big box of Jolly Ranchers since they are our favorite and let me tell you they were the freshest Jolly Ranchers I've ever had! Most of the chocolate tasted about like any other chocolate we get at home but the bars we made and the Jolly Ranchers were the best!
We left Hershey and headed toward New Jersey to find a hotel and to meet with the couple who my brother was picking something up from for his friend. We realized we were going to beat them to their house so we stopped at this beautiful walking trail and walked down it for a while. It was so pretty and there was a stream right next to us that followed the path. The weather was perfect too. It was between 65 and 75 the whole time we were in PA and NJ. Lovely!
This is the farm the couple owned. It was amazing!
On our way to the hotel my brother saw a sign for Davy's Hot Dogs and since his name is actually Davy on his birth certificate and you don't see many places called Davy's he had to stop. It was a huuuuge disappointment. None of us liked the hot dogs. The only thing that was good was the italian ice Ashley got. That's where she fell in love with italian ice. Ha! My sister-in-law was excited about Davy's because she saw a picture of the Von Trapp family's grandkids that had visited Davy's. She loves sounds of music so she got excited that she had been somewhere that their family had been.
These flowers were the highlight of the Davy's stop for me. Ha! We saw these orange flowers all over PA and NJ.
