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We took a week to circle Lake Erie. We never visited Lake Erie itself, just a few interesting points.

Day 5

After breakfast at the hotel, we left Perry. It was a few hours – starting on some backs roads because Perry (or Castile, I couldn’t figure out which was where) is not near anything. The plan was get up, eat breakfast, and leave, Then, 4 hours later, we would arrive in Harrisburg and eat lunch and then pop over to Hershey since it is right next to Harrisburg.

Due to the lack of breakfast options, it seems that everyone ate lighter than usual, because people were hungry about halfway to Harrisburg. Or maybe it took us longer to pack up so we didn’t leave right after breakfast. I forget which.

Anyway, thanks to the magic or smartphones, my wife was able to find a restaurant that we could get to before the kids melted down. There were a variety of chains, but we chose a place we had never heard of before – Country Cupboard.

It’s in Lewisburg, and it is well worth a stop. It has a large restaurant, but it also has a candy store and gift shop and stuff. You may be picturing a Cracker Barrel. That would be inadequate. This place is more like a complex, filling an area comparable to a few Cracker barrels put together.

The kids liked it. A lot. In fact, Beta still asks if we can go to Pennsylvania, just so he can eat at the Country Cupboard again. The food was good. And it was a buffet, so the kids could get what they liked and in what portions. There was a lot of variety, and it was a decent price. Nothing bad to say.

We eventually made it to Hershey and went to the Hershey Lodge.

It was more expensive than I would have liked, but I looked into what we would get and what we would save by having free parking and shuttle rides and free or discounted admission to various attractions.

It ended up costing slightly more than if one were to piece everything together by staying not on a Hershey property and paying full price for admission and parking. But the convenience factor was worth it, especially since the Hershey-provided shuttle buses did most of the driving for us.

Staying at a Hershey property did have its perks.

Like the themed wallpaper:

And the chocolate-inspired stuff:

Anyway, first we checked in. This was a very involved process because he had to explain things, give us maps, print out free tickets, confirm this other thing, print out more tickets, explain that our room card functions as a credit card at any other Hershey property (hotel, restaurant, park, etc.), give us our free Hershey bars, point out where to park near our room, and I think that’s it.

I parked and we took our stuff into the room. Since we had an hour or so to kill, we headed down to the mini-golf facility. The kids were having fun for the first few holes, then the worker kicked everyone off the course because they had seen lightning. So we went back inside, regrouped, had a snack, and headed out to Hershey Park.

One of the benefits of staying onsite is getting into Hershey Park an hour early, plus admission the evening before. So there were a bunch of us lined up at the shuttle bus stop. It was a hot evening, and they had a misting fan running to keep us cool as we waited for the next bus.

The shuttle bus is convenient, as it bypasses the lines that regular civilians have to wait in to enter the parking lot.

The kids had fun seeing the place and trying some rides. Alpha was the most adventurous, riding roller coasters. Some with me, some by himself. Everyone else liked the cable cars. We also rode the monorail, which would be better if it actually went somewhere and was useful for transportation. Instead, it is just a big loop that lets you see the park from a little higher up.

Then we got back to the hotel past everyone’s usual bedtimes and went right to bed.

Day 6

The next morning was not as warm as the day before, but we dressed for the waterpark and got on the shuttle bus. There was a longer line this time.

We got to the park about 30 minutes before it opened to the public, since we could get in 1 hour beforehand. It was nice being able to bypass the long lines of people . But, not much of the park was open that early, and they even blocked off the second half of the park so you couldn’t even get into position to be at certain attractions when the park officially opened. So it was almost pointless. Don’t expect much early, other than skipping the entrance line.

But we got to enjoy the waterpark. It was warm enough, and not rainy.

Around lunch time, we got ready for lunch. Having planned ahead to bring a minimal amount of items, all I brought was a towel and a room key. Since the room key doubles as a credit card, that was really all I needed. We got in line, ordered the food, and paid with the room key. Except the room key didn’t cooperate. “It’s telling me you already checked out so you can’t pay with this card,” the cashier told me. Of course, we didn’t figure that out until the food had been put on the tray and the kids were very hungry. I trekked over a few buildings to guest services, where they called someone, called someone else, transferred to the other person, who finally was able to verify that the front-desk clerk forgot to setup our card correctly. They gave us a workaround and I was able to go back and get our food again, about 45 minutes late.

After lunch, we went back to the non-waterpark part of Hersheypark. Alpha again enjoyed the roller coasters and the younger kids enjoyed the cable cars.

Then we hit the aquatic show, which was seals and sea lions

They did include the classic balance-the-ball-on-the-nose trick, so that was good.

Some of us rode the Ferris wheel.

I forget what we did for dinner, but it wasn’t at the park. Then it was bedtime.

To Be Continued …

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