A Little Fun Along the Way

Since the last blog post was a bit depressing with all of our medical issues, I thought I needed to write one about having fun. Following Tim’s surgery, we headed back to the RV in Gettysburg. We had lost the couple of weeks that we wanted to spend touring the area so we were left with one full day before we had to leave. In the morning, we headed off to check out the battlefield with the national park visitor’s center as our first stop. There was so much to see and do in the visitor’s center that we could have spent the entire day there. The center includes a museum and multiple theaters; keep in mind that there are fees for these areas.

Since it was supposed to rain in the afternoon, we decided to spend the morning outside so we didn’t purchase the tickets. We thought if we had the time and energy, we would come back when it was raining for the indoor tour. The National Park Service has an app that provides driving tour instructions with an audio description of each stop. I downloaded the app and pulled up the first stop and off we went. Unfortunately, there was some road construction with a few roads closed, so we had some difficulty doing the stops in order. We actually did the last 3 stops before we got to the first stop on the tour. That was ok, we were able to do the rest of the stops mostly in order except there was one area still closed for construction.

Tennessee monument

Mississippi monument

Even with the issues, we were able to navigate to most of the stops and listen to the audio at each. The day was a bit windy, cool and cloudy but that didn’t dampen our enjoyment. The audio tour really helped to visualize the battle and horror that happened here. One thing I enjoyed is seeing all of the monuments to the various state regiments; both North and South.

pennsylvania monumenet

We ended near the national cemetery which is another place that you could spend quite a bit of time. Such a sad and solemn place. With the rain starting, we couldn’t spend much time there so we headed to Gettysburg Eddies for a late lunch. After lunch, we decided that we were tired so we headed back to the RV and finished watching the Gettysburg movie instead of going back to the visitor’s center. We will have to save the movies and museum for another trip.

After Gettysburg, we headed to the Thousand Trails Hershey Campground for a 3 week stay. For the most part, we hung around the campground and spent time visiting family and friends. I enjoyed the visits so much, and was so in the moment, that I didn’t get any pictures. The visits provided opportunities to try out some restaurants in nearby towns. It is always fun to drive around that area of Pennsylvania; beautiful countrysides, farms and quaint small towns are all along the way. It seemed that each town had an historic inn that is still operating, at least as a restaurant. Good food and good times!

our site at thousand trails hershey. Trent really liked this site; he could watch everyone going by from his cot, one of his favorite activites.

When we visited my cousins Jacque and Sandy, they suggested that we make a day trip to visit the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, PA. This is the oldest continuing operating brewery in the USA and is Tim’s favorite beer. When we learned that it was only an hours drive, we decided to go for the tour of the brewery. I have to say that I was surprised how much I enjoyed the tour. Our guide was very informative and seemed so proud to be working there. This brewery is only used to make a small quantity of their beer and they have a much larger facility nearby as well as another facility in Florida. They keep the old brewery operating so they can maintain their oldest operating brewery designation. Of course, the tour ended with a tasting and I was surprised how much I liked their stout, which is not usually a beer that I like. It and the Black and Tan were my favorites. Tim liked most of their beers but I think the lager is still his favorite.

The old brewery is built at the base of the mountain and actually has dug out caves back in to the mountain that were used to store the barrels of beer and keep them cold prior to the era of refrigeration.

going through the caves

The Rathskellar where the workers ate lunch served with beer of course!

This window opens to the brick wall of the church next door. Look how close the buildings are to each other.

cool murals on the walls throughout the brewery

WATCHING the ASSEMBLY line for the cans to be filled was fascinating. they moved really fast through this area.

While we were in Hershey, we found a mobile mechanic to do the Pennsylvania inspection on the new truck. We got the title and registration handled while in Gettysburg but didn’t find a place for the inspection there. It was hard to find a place in Hershey also; not many places will do the heavy duty trucks. Luckily, we found someone and he was also willing to give me a driving lesson as well as a few lessons on the pre-trip inspection. At some point this summer, I hope to get the appropriate license to at least drive the truck. Eventually I need to learn how to pull the trailer with it but I think that will take some time.

inspection underway

All in all, Hershey was great place to stay. It is a very nice, well run campground and I am sure we will be back sometime in the future. We are now settled into Wright’s Orchard Station Campground near Altoona, PA, where we will be spending the summer while I am helping around the campground in exchange for our site. Hopefully hospitals are behind us for awhile and we can focus on having some more fun!