Scott and the girls on the World of Chocolate ride!Today was mostly spent in the car. We got up, checked out of the hotel and headed back to Hershey’s World of Chocolate. Yes, it was as wonderful as it sounds! I was very impressed with Hershey. It's a very nice place to visit with your kids. There are lots of really nice resorts there too. The center of town really is the chocolate factory. It’s (no joke) on the corner of Chocolate Avenue and Cocoa! Apparently, Milton Hershey built the factory and then built the town so that his employees would have a nice community in which to live. He built houses there, and put money into the public schools, library, theater….etc. He and his wife had no children so they left their fortune to the Milton Hershey School for orphaned boys.
We left Hershey around 2:00 and headed west. I had no idea how beautiful Pennsylvania is!! It’s got the most beautiful rolling green hills with picturesque farms dotting the landscape. Scott and I have spotted several places today that we would love to move to! I was helping Scott by reading the map and trying to find where we were on the highway when I noticed we were within ten miles of Shanksville. It hadn’t occurred to either of us that we would be anywhere near it. We quickly figured out where to get off the highway and headed in the general direction. After awhile we thought we had missed it and pulled into a little mom and pop grocery store. Scott went in and asked directions and came back out to the car and told me I had to go in. The store was owned by a man and his wife. He said they’d had so many people stop and ask for directions that they had made a big board with a map to the crash site on it and printed materials to give out. The store was a classic. They sold homemade maple syrup, jams and jellies, old fashioned candy and produce. Believe me we didn’t leave empty handed! The drive to the memorial is quite possibly the most beautiful drive I’ve ever taken. Almost every house we passed had an American flag. The temporary memorial is really just an asphalt parking lot and a small building for the National Park Service volunteers. There is the huge section of fence that people left mementos on in the months following 9-11. The actual crash site is about 500 yards downhill from the viewing area. There are benches there with the names of the 40 people on the plane. It’s very moving. I think because it’s so extremely peaceful there. It’s nestled in a beautiful field surrounded by trees, and unbelievably quiet and serene…a beautiful final resting place.
The actual crash site is fenced off, but marked with a big American flag. Family members are the only ones allowed to actually enter the crash site. They have plans for a large memorial that they hope to have completed by 2011, the tenth anniversary. We saw the design and plans at the temporary memorial. They are in the fundraising stage now. If you are looking for something worthwhile to make a donation to, this is certainly a good one. They have “ambassadors” who volunteer at the site and explain what happened on 9-11 and the days following. There are 40 of them from the local community that all take shifts. As I stood there, I kept thinking of being in Philadelphia yesterday and standing in the room where people were prepared to risk everything for freedom, to standing in a Pennsylvania field a couple of hundred miles away where 200 years later men and women did risk everything for the same cause. It makes you realize what a powerful thing freedom really is. For me, this was definitely one, if not the best, thing we did on this vacation.
Thomas and Grace's Top Five for June 11, 2006
1. "The chocolate ride" There is no actual tour of the chocolate factory for security reasons, so they have created an elaborate ride that takes you through the chocolate making process.
2. "That HUGE gift shop filled with chocolate!" You've heard the expression, "like a kid in a candy store?" Well, we had 3, no make that 4 (scott!) of them today!
3. "We're in Ohio!" I have no idea why, but they have been so excited all day to come to Ohio. I didn't even know they knew Ohio was a state. For whatever reason they are very excited we are here!
4."We saw where the plane crashed." I asked them how they felt when we were there and Thomas answered,"Sorry that they had to fight the bad guys." Grace said she was,"sad that they all had to die."
5. "We went swimming." This is always and forever gonna be on the top 5, so get used to seeing it!
I think the driving is beginning to eat away at Scott’s mind. He’s begun singing today. Not with the radio, but making up his own tunes. So far we’ve enjoyed, “Another freakin’ hundred miles here we come!” to the tune of “She’ll be comin' round the mountain” and “They have to potty all the time, potty all the time” to “Party all the time” and several chorus’s of John Denver’s song about West Virginia!
Mandy also lost it today when she tried to grab Grace's notebook from her and Grace swatted her hand. This.....
....took place for the next 20 minutes or so. Everything we gave her to try and make it better she hurled in the direction of the person who'd given it to her.
Tomorrow morning we are headed to Cincinnati to have a late breakfast/early lunch with Scott's Aunt Liz and then onto Nashville!
Blessings,
Leslie
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