Weekend Recap

x-posted here from my LiveJournal for my blogger friends.

Saturday~ We left Charleroi around 8:30.Stopped at Burger King for breakfast and then made the trip east. Ah how I love east. East is my very favorite. Everything is so beautiful there, and this trip just reaffirmed that belief. We made several pit stops along the way, one at Somerset to get photos of the windmills. Sadly that was the one spot where the sun wasn't shining. I still have a few greyish shots of the Somerset Windfarm. (Mill Run has a better wind farm)

We arrived at Hershey sometime after 1 o'clock. The Hilton Garden is an absolutely gorgeous hotel. Our package gave us 2 park tickets, 2 t-shirts, 2 small duffel bags and 2 breakfasts. Quite a deal for $350 bucks.

The first stop on our tour of the town was Hershey Gardens (which was free because of Deb's family membership at Phipps) The roses were absoluely gorgeous, plus the Big Bugs display was there. I haven't seen the bugs since they made a stop at Phipps about 4 or so years back when I went there with my brother and his wife Cheryl. I think it's possible their roses were just as beautiful as the ones I saw last year at the Palace of Gold in WV (and that's saying something) The Children's Garden there made the one in Phipps look miserable. (and I love Phipps' Children's Garden) I exhausted one pack of batteries there, taking well over a hundred pics. Mind you, even in the world of digital not all the shots come out quite as nice as they do on the LCD screen.

After the gardens we made our way to ZooAmerica, which would have been part of our free ride all day thing at the park, but there's no way we would have made it through the Zoo Sunday. We didn't nearly get to ride enough at the park. So may cute animals. Not many good pictures, because as I learned at Living Treasures, cages don't make for good photos.

Following our walk through the zoo, we went to Red Robin for some tasty burgers and strawberry lemonade. Yum! Our appetizer was slow at coming and we got it free. Yay! We ate it with our meal and it was quite tasty.

Then came the outlet mall. Not much to write home about, but it was something to do. Plus I bought CDs! Squeeage there.

Back at the hotel, the bratling and I headed for the pool. Yup! I finally got to wear one of my new swimsuits! Hot diggity!

After swimming I was forced to help the bratling find food at 11:30 at night!

Sunday~ Sunday was all about the park and Gary Puckett. Breakfast was provided by the Hilton Garden. Mine was 10 dollars extra, but the buffet was good with omelettes and french toast sticks and ever manor of good treats. Oddly on this trip I found myself drinking coffee. I'm not a huge fan of it, but it hit the spot when sleep isn't found in large commodities.

When we finished eating, we quickly went upstairs to get ready for checking out. Bratling had one last swim and I went to the business office to see what was happening in internet land for a few minutes.

Chocolate World was our first stop of the day, and oh what a fun stop it was. You go on a ride that shows you how chocolate is made. Some animated cows sing to you about milk chocolate along the way. Afterwards, you get seduced by every manner of souvenirs from t-shirts and candy to stuffed toys. Yes, I bought one of each...or more :)

The park was fantastic, and I'm not always an amusement park kind of person. Because we were seeing the show, we didn't ride as much as we would have liked. I did get to ride two coasters (The Comet and The Wild Cat), the Sky Ride, the Monorail, The Swings, The Flume. The Ferris Wheel, The Kissing Tower and a strange airplane type ride.

Now for the highlight of the weekend. Front row center seats at the Gary Puckett show in the park. And we were near the back of the line! I have many lovely lovely shots of the man. He also signed 2 of my CDs and I got my picture with him! Squee! He's such a sweetie. Oh and did I mention the concert was pretty darn good. A fun time was had by all, except when this girl had to drive home on very little sleep.



This one is from my flickr page

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