"An apple a day keeps anyone away, if you throw it hard enough."--Stephen Colbert

Fall is here! Highs: 50's, Lows: low thirties   Site: C-48 pull thru

The trees are turning quickly. They are especially beautiful in Bristol, IN. There sure are some spectacular large trees with gorgeous color all around the area. 

Eldy is done with cataract surgery and all is well. For anyone younger who might not know, ) a cataract is a cloudy growth over your lens in your eye that occurs with old age. You don't start thinking about it or hearing about it until you get to be in your sixties and beyond most likely. Everybody eventually gets them. There comes a certain point where you need to get them removed and an artificial lens implanted called an intraocular lens or you might go blind eventually. There are many different types of lenses with different prescriptions they can put in and you get to choose which one you like based on your doctor's recommendations. As you age, you think your vision is just getting worse because of old age, but the clouding of the lens which occurs normally over a period of years, starts making things look like you are looking through a cloudy or dirty window. You also need to know that exposure to sunlight WITHOUT WEARING SUNGLASSES can speed up the development of cataracts. Sparky is TERRIBLE about not wearing sunglasses. We knew we were both close to being ready for surgery the past year, because each of us kept cleaning our glasses MANY times a day, thinking we had bad or dirty glasses and needed a new prescription. Other signs are: trouble with night vision, light and glare sensitivity (BIG halos around street lights and car lights at night), more frequent glasses prescription changes, double vision sometimes, or the sense of colors fading or yellowing. In addition, the cataracts have to be at a certain stage for insurance to pay for the surgery. This year it was time.

Eldy only has one good eye, so it was a little nerve wracking when the good eye was operated on. (He is legally blind in his left eye.) It's a quick operation, about 10-15 minutes and he was given an anesthetic. He says for the first eye he was totally out, he thought, but he really wasn't. He reports that for the second eye, the doctor talked to him and asked him to "look up," or "look to your left", things like that, so he felt he was much more aware of what was going on, but still couldn't feel anything. ( He just remembers the conversation the second time, haha.) Eldy was in and out of the surgery center for the whole check in and check out procedure in under two hours. He was given a special prescriptive eye drop medication to use 3 times a day at home for the first week, tapering off little by little the second week. He was to continue using over the counter Systane eye drops 4 times a day for two weeks and then that tapers off as well. A special medicinal implant was inserted in the eye to minimize infection at the time of surgery, and the purpose to lessen the amount of prescriptive eye drops needed. It gets gradually absorbed by the eye and you can't even tell it is there. He was amazed at how much improvement there was with both eyes. He still can't see very well out of his bad eye, but together using both eyes, he is thrilled to be able to see a lot of things without his glasses. Our Medicare plan covers the cost of replacement glasses because your vision changes quite a bit after surgery, so we are happy about that!

Sparky was up next. We both went to Boling Eye Care Center in Elkhart, IN, an excellent facility that has state of the art equipment and their own in house surgery site plus the optometry department. It's an interesting process, that's for sure. All measurements and pre-op are done now mostly with machines. We probably each went through a line of 6-8 machines to get ready for eye surgery. They measure your pupil reaction time to glare, they measure and map your cornea, they check your current eye prescriptions not only with "Is this better? One, or two? How about three? Or four?"  but with another machine as well. They also check your eye pressure before and after surgery. Increased eye pressure is common after surgery so they want to keep an eye on that. (Ooooohhhh, sorry about the bad pun. Sparky couldn't resist.)

Our Medicare plans pay for the entire surgeries ($5,000 per eye) IF we opt for scalpel removal of the cataracts and not laser, and IF we don't elect to pick special lenses that pretty much guarantee that you won't need glasses any more. That's a hefty out of pocket expense at maybe $3,000 per eye for special prescriptive lenses. Neither one of us minds still having to wear glasses, we've worn them pretty much all our lives. Eldy actually can see things without his glasses at all and now only needs a bit of prescription for closeup. So he's using cheater readers until his eyes finalize and work together optimally, about a month after the second surgery. Because he has only one good eye, he is going to keep wearing glasses all the time with a new prescription to protect the good eye. So for the both of us, Medicare covers the entire surgeries at zero cost to us by electing the "no frills" cataract surgery.

Sparky had trouble with her first eye, the left one. Apparently, a cataract that wasn't quite ready for Medicare coverage last year, rapidly developed into a dense cataract this year. Sparky had a brunescent cataract which is a dense cataract that has gotten "crusty", brittle and brown around the edges, and was much harder to remove. For every extra minute in eye surgery, the recovery time is an extra day or two longer, said the doctor. After three days, the blurriness was still bad. At the day after followup appointment, Sparky was told they "really had to dig it out". (!) Glad they told her that AFTER it was all done! Sparky worried and fretted as the week went on and the blurriness continued so back to the doctor for an extra consultation. The lens was good, there was no infection, but because the cataract was so hard to remove, there was more corneal swelling. Sparky was given ANOTHER set of eye drops, a sodium chloride solution to help reduce the swelling. That makes THREE sets of eye drops to keep track of, but Boling Eye Care Center gives you a little calendar for each eye with little boxes to check off by the names of the eye drops so you don't get mixed up. 

The second eye surgery was scheduled one week away. Sparky had a tough week trying to see with two VERY different eye prescriptive needs. She was still wearing her glasses with far and near prescription for the right eye, and nothing for the left eye. It's a waiting game between the first and the second surgeries, so it's like taking the training wheels off the first eye to make it start working differently. (They popped the left lens out after the first surgery, so Sparky's brain could start coordinating a new way to see things), but the week was tough, as the blurriness continued, and both eyes did not want to work together to see anything close up. Sparky is not great at being patient, she was hoping for results YESTERDAY! (Glad SHE said that and not me, says E.) If the eye is still blurry in three more days, Sparky is going to delay the second eye surgery for a week.

In addition to all the eye drops, we both had to wear a clear plastic eye "patch" with perforated holes taped around the surgical eye for three nights so we wouldn't rub our eye in our sleep or bump it. After surgery each of us experienced very little itchiness or achyness. That was the good part.

Good job, Eldy!

While waiting in between appointments and followup visits to the eye doctor, dentist and regular doctor checkups, we went visiting one of the fall apple orchards in the Elkhart area. There are several in Michigan, but we like the ability to "U-Pick" at Kercher's Apple Orchard in Goshen, IN. You can pick the low lying apples off the trees, or get the best ones at the top with a pole. Just stick the pole up into the branches, entrap the apple in the center of the basket, twist the pole handle a couple of times, and the apple comes right off. Eldo has the technique down pat!

Indian corn

Cool gourds!

They have all kinds of delectable fall goodies as well in the store--pumpkin whoopee pies, fruit pies, apple pies, candies, and really great cider! They also have heirloom gourds, Indian corn, and pumpkins, too. We really enjoyed the orchard the day we went! There is also Miller's Cider Mill in the area for an Amish cider making experience with a really old school cider press. You can even take your own apples to the mill to have super fresh cider made. Very cool! It's near the end of the season for apples, so glad we got a chance to go and pick some.

                                            Happy fall, y'all!

Back Home Again in Indiana...

 "Back home again in Indiana, 

And it seems that I can see, 

The gleaming candlelight, still shining bright,

Through the sycamores for me....

The new-mown hay sends all its fragrance

From the fields I used to roam,

When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash,

Then I long for my Indiana home."--McDonald and Hanley, 1917

This is a refrain from an old song that is sung at every Indiana 500 race each year. It's almost more popular and well known than the state song. Indiana really is home for us. Sparky spent all her years from the age of 18 almost thru her late fifties in the state, and Eldy has lived in Indiana most of his long life, too! Plus a lot of family is in Indiana. We will be here awhile, having to do dentist, doctor visits and cataract surgery for the both of us.

Site: 39 Whispering Pines section, Twin Mills Encore Park. Cost: free!

Highs: 50's to low 60's, Lows: high 30's (!) to low 40's

We are at Twin Mills, in Howe, IN, one of our favorite places to be because of all the Amish in the area, the great Elkhart restaurants and RV suppliers, family and friends, etc. We got a different area of the park this time, over in the Whispering Pines section across the street from the office. The best area for big rigs is in Campers' Cove near the office, which has a lot of pull thrus, but it's getting harder and harder to get those, particularly if you are staying through a weekend, and almost impossible during the weekends in October due to their massive Halloween month long celebration. Several seasonal/annual families spend thousands of dollars to put out the most fantastic Halloween display you will ever see. Check out some of these Halloween decorations!

Sparky's favorite is the old "Bone Collector" truck which shows up every year, full of skeletons. 

Eldo checking out the decorations

The Whispering Pines section, which is across the street (Highway 120) is a heavy seasonal area, (seasonal or "annual", they call it). People have bought lots and park their rigs on them and then they travel back and forth from their homes to their rig during the good weather or stay all summer here in the park. But in the month of October, you can see it's a fabulous place to be due to all the Halloween celebrations and decorations that go on for three consecutive weekends ending the week BEFORE Halloween when Twin Mills closes for the season on October 31st. Each year, the decorations seem to grow and expand. There are many interactive sites that can be a little scary if you aren't expecting it, even for a grownup!

Our only disappointments with our site are: 1. It is VERY unlevel. We had a terrible time getting level. With a heavily forested, mature campground, the roots cause the ground to be super uneven.You have to be level so your slides will go out and come in ok, and so the refrigerator works properly. If you are very unlevel, and you have a combination propane gas/electric fridge, which is common in many RVs, it won't cool properly.  On one side at our site, both tires are off the ground and that's a big NO-NO. It puts great stress on the jacks and could bust them. So we wedged boards under the tires to stabilize them as best as we could so they won't spin off the ground. A lot of the sites in this older campground section are very uneven.

We plan to get some boards while we are here to drive up and on to help get the coach more level for the next uneven spot. 2. One of the main sewer tanks is directly behind the RV and when the wind blows a certain direction, it smells like the neighbors are dumping their sewer tanks all at the same time. Phooey! or should we say, "WHEW-EEE!" But hey, isn't this a nice looking site? Luckily, we really haven't smelled it much at all since we've been here.

Unfortunately, this whole section (Whispering Pines) will be reserved for seasonal people by the end of next year most likely. It seems as though available, transient spots are shrinking in the Thousand Trails system of parks for people who travel more frequently, like us. Some day we will pick an area to "season" in for the summer months, then pick another seasonal area to winter in, but we are not there yet and are still able to travel, so that's what we intend to do! We hope we can still have choices of spots when we get to a park, and that there will be some available for us. So far, so good!

Sparky has been riding the Pumpkinvine Trail, one her favorite trails in the country, quite often. If you ride from downtown Shipshewanna trailhead to Goshen, it's about 18 miles or less one way. Sparky wishes she could take some photos of the cute Amish kids and their families that use the trail as one of their main transportation routes to and from Shipshewanna, but the Amish do not wish to have their photographs taken. The other day, school let out during Sparky's afternoon ride. Two little Amish girls in black bonnets and rather colorful but plain long dresses down to their ankles started on the trail, carrying their Igloo cooler lunchboxes, to head towards their home. BOTH were barefoot, and it was barely 50 degrees! Sparky has seen all kinds of bicycles with the Amish. Sometimes it's a bike with another smaller one attached to the main one, with a young one pedaling behind mom or dad. Another time it's a dad with his little toddlers in a cart, being towed. They always have such rosy cheeks from all that fresh fall air! And Sparky has even seen, (GASP!) Amish or Mennonites on electric bikes! Guess they can ride them because they are battery powered. Times they are a changin'! Wonder if the Amish and their hard working lifestyle are much healthier as a general population than the rest of us? Hm-m-mmm....but they do love their ice cream, just as we do!

Amish ladies leaving the ice cream shop

If you travel the bike trail from Shipshewanna all the way through Middlebury to Abshire Park in Goshen, you will pass a country lane ice cream stop. It's called Mooey's, it's on a farm, and the Amish love it. There are usually as many Amish as there are "English", which is anyone who is not Amish. Good cheeseburgers, and lots of great ice cream flavors. There is also a section of the Pumpkinvine near the ice cream shop that was supposed to open by this time, fall of 2022, so you don't have to take a 1.7 mile jog out on county roads to cross over to the next section of the trail, but it's not done yet.

Sparky loves the scenery along the Pumpkinvine trail....Amish farms, horses grazing, cows grazing, the Amish riding or walking the trail, Amish buggies on the intersecting county roads and the laundry hanging out on the lines. Sometimes you can even see barefooted Amish kids playing softball at recess. The trail changes a LOT--from beautiful forests to wide open farm fields to city sidewalks and paths. And parts of the trail go into "spurs" through some towns like Goshen, IN. Sparky found some art installations this time that were really pretty and thought provoking in Goshen. The photo to the left was artwork by a sewer drain! Sparky found out later this is part of a many talented gathering of artists who are joining a celebration of art here in Elkhart, IN, by painting colorful playful art in interesting places-like the sewer grate above left. 

The leaves are turning AMAZING colors in the past week. New England may have the rest of the country beats far as the fall foliage, but we certainly are having a beautiful fall here in Elkhart, IN!

While you are in the area, be sure to get your "crack donuts" at the Rise and Roll Bakery, between Shipshewanna and Middlebury. We did. (Sparky said we can only get them one time during this stay, fusses Eldo, who LOVES his donuts, but so does Sparky). Our sugar levels say uh, nope! to more than just once in awhile. These are so good, probably everybody's sugar levels say, "Watch it, kids!"

More things to do--back to the artwork! Check out all the elk artwork on parade around the area...It was a fundraiser for Child and Parent Services of Elkhart in 2017. There are 38 elk and you can get a map online to find them all....This one is at the Middlebury Library....(And it's Sparky's favorite because 1. it's covered with literacy symbols, 2. it's at the library, and 3. because she's a former teacher, explains E.)

last summer

Not only is Elkhart a city with "heart" in it, it has a lot of ART. There is the Elkhart County ART trail.....Fifteen fabulous years of quilt gardens are here, (come in the summer for the most amazing displays of flowers that makes quilt pattern displays all over town) AND check out and find all the quilt tile patterns on walls of buildings and plazas all over town as part of the Heritage Trail. 

Now, this year, the works of renowned sculptor, Seward Johnson, are paired at each quilt garden site. His works are amazing realistic life like bronze statues. Not sure how long they will be on display, but it's great to see all the art in the area totally available out in the open to the public.

"Crossing Paths" by Seward Johnson

From a distance, Sparky thought this was a real guy trimming the bushes at Kryder Gardens, another beautiful stopping point on the Pumpkinvine Trail. It's another Seward Johnson sculpture, but a title was not spotted.

One more....Love this jubilant little girl statue, hula hooping. It's called "Attic Trophy".

What else have we been doing? We took out our very black faux leather sleeper sofa and replaced it with two lighter colored chairs--rocking recliner chairs! Eldo loves to rock and so does Sparky. Eldo loves to rock so much, he eventually breaks every rocker he's had, indoors and out! But hey---life is short, especially with us now, so we get another one when they break. It was a JOB getting the old couch out. We took it all apart. There were lots of hidden screws that made it tough to get them all out but we persevered and that's how we got our 80" long sofa out our skinny little 32" wide entry door in the RV. 

Here is the new look! Sparky is one happy camper now....It's so nice to walk in and see the lighter chairs by the window instead of that big ole black couch! And with that, we will say goodbye for now....See you down the road!

All About Ashtabula and the Area

Jefferson, Ohio.  Thousand Trails Kenisee Lake. Site: B-9

Highs: 50's to low 60's.  Lows: 40's to 50's. Fall is here!  ATT hot spot--download speed is 4.88, upload speed is 0.6. that's terrible! Forget about streaming anything on using your phone hotspot! T-Mobile Mifi download speed is 9.37, upload speed is 1.38--not very good but we can still use the internet! Water is about 56 psi's, so that is good water pressure. Sparky is reporting these speeds now on the blog because it's important to know which how the connections are is going to work for researching, posting photos, a blog, water and sewer hookups and communicating with family. More and more people are working on the road and need to know these things.

We are in Jefferson, Ohio, just outside of Ashtabula, in the northeast corner of Ohio, very close to Lake Erie at Thousand Trails Kenisee Lake RV park, free with our camping membership. We are here for four nights on our way to Indiana next. The road leading into the park turn off is narrow and winding. Be careful and watch out for deer as well. Note: DO NOT FOLLOW GPS directions or Mapquest directions to get to the park. Both will lead you straight to a low clearance (10ft. 8") bridge. 

Kenisee Lake is a very small park with two small lakes, 119 sites, only a few are available for pull through (10?) and the rest are back in. Many sites are taken up with seasonal rigs. This seems to be the trend at many Thousand Trails parks. The park has BIG, wide open green spaces and huge resident flocks of geese. They could put a ton more sites in if they wanted to. 

All sites for campers moving on through are out in the open, with no trees and are gravel and grass sites, level. There is a pool (now closed for the season) and a very small laundry room if you need it. The cons are: the gravel sites flood when it rains, and a variety of cell phone services all struggle with speed and good connections. The park is located in a small town with limited shopping options, but if you don't mind driving a bit, there is plenty to see and do in the area. The pros are: it's clean, it's quiet, and in the county you can take a covered bridge tour on your own, or check out the barn quilt tour on your own as well. The town of Geneva-on-the-Lake, a summer resort town right on Lake Erie is nearby, but pretty much shuts down after Labor Day. There are LOTS of wineries (30) in the area. And of course, lots of recreational opportunities at Lake Erie and a very nice bike trail just a couple of miles from the RV park, called the Western Reserve Greenway Bike Trail, with the trailhead closest being Eagleville trailhead. 

In addition, here are some other ideas if you are in the Ashtabula area:

Pick apples at Brant Apple Orchard, (Aug-November) and try a cider slushy or cider donuts. We got some cider and it was delicious! 

Smolen-Gulf Covered Bridge

Do the covered bridge tour on your own...get a map and off you go! There are 19 covered bridges in the area. It's a fun drive and the map places you logically and most efficiently as to how to visit them. Check out the beautiful Smolen-Gulf Covered Bridge--the longest covered bridge in the US, but definitely not the oldest. It is 613 feet long. There is a beautiful park there, too. Here is a shot of the bridge side walkway, (to the left), there is a walkway on both sides. 

Root Road Bridge

If you are an architecture buff, know that there are 5 truss patterns found within the 19 covered bridges. They are: the Burr Arch, the Town Lattice Truss, the Howe Truss, the Inverted Harp Truss, and the Pratt Truss (which is the Smolen-Gulf Bridge). The insides of these bridges are AMAZING! 

Middle Bridge-Howe Truss

Eldy is waving hi thru the Root Bridge!

The map tells you the year, the type of structure, the clearance, and the dimensions. The shortest clearance is at 9 ft., 4 in. The truck cleared it-barely! One of Sparky's favorites this time was the State Road Bridge seen below.

State Road Bridge

There are two driving tours for the bridges, if you wanted to cover them all. The north and eastern tour covers 13 bridges and spans 69 miles, the south and western tour covers 6 bridges and spans 68 miles.

Mechanicsville Bridge + Quilt Pattern

If you are a history buff, check out the Hubbard House Underground Railroad Museum in Ashtabula, take a tour through the 19th century Jefferson Depot, the Ashtabula Maritime and Surface Transportation Museum, or the Victorian Perambulator Museum, a truly a one-of-a-kind in the world. That would be a history of baby carriages in case you are not familiar with the "p" word! Lucille Ball's baby carriage is in there, apparently and there's enough historic perambulators to fill 15 rooms!

You could go looking for beach glass at Conneaut (pronounced "Connie-ought") Township Park or Walnut Beach.

Italian pizza oven at Nights and Weekends

Eat pizza at the Nights and Weekends Pizzeria in downtown Ashtabula Harbor. Fantastic pizza, and the wood fired oven is from Italy!  Some great locally brewed beer there, too. (Yep, smiles a satisfied Eldo).

In early August, the largest D-Day re-enactment in the WORLD takes place in Conneaut. It's a free event and over 3,000 reenactors help make it happen.

At Brant's Apple Orchard

If you are a crafter or sewer, you might want to take in the Barn Quilts Tour by doing a beautiful drive. Barn quilt motifs are painted on the sides of barns, shops, sign boards, or historical places of significance all over the county. The concept began with a lady in Ohio who wanted to honor her mother and her Appalachian heritage. You can learn the story of each pattern at: BarnQuiltsAshtabulaCounty.com. 

The covered bridge tour and the barn quilt tour is all in the same piece of literature available at the RV park office.

Church in Jefferson with quilt pattern

Sparky's Place

And of course, we just HAD to try Sparky's Place....on Broad Street in Conneaut for a huge fish sandwich and some terrific cheese curds. Just about everything made from scratch. Sparky says, if it has her name on it, it's got to be good--well, we hope, anyway...And it was! It has a cool atmosphere. The owner has it decorated with kitschy stuff all over the place and TWO leg lamps (seen in the movie "A Christmas Story", a classic--"It's 'FRAGEE-LAY'".)

In the short four days we were there, we did a lot of these things and topped it off with the Grape Festival on the weekend, the day before we were to leave for Indiana. This was the first time the grape festival had been held in two years and so the turnout was great. All things grape here--grape ice cream, grape pie, and purple cows. Concord grapes off the vine are amazing!

Sparky ALMOST signed up for the adult grape stomping contest, but watched the little ones do it instead. They came before the grownups. A lady celebrating her 40th birthday had the guts to stomp in a mini dress! The grapes are in a small barrel, held by a guy in a white hazmat suit with a face mask. (He put one on later after getting juice on his face) and it was not at all like we pictured it would be, but still fun to watch. They played funky music with a beat to get the contestants to stomp faster.

We had a great stay in Ohio, and are looking forward to a return visit for some more great spots in Ashtabula County to visit and check out next time. We head out tomorrow for Howe and Elkhart, Indiana, for an extended stay.

Both Eldy and Sparky will be having cataract surgery and doing all the catching up with dentist and doctor visits, to get those out of the way, AND visiting with Eldy's son's family. We are also looking forward to seeing the fall and leaf color changes in Indiana.  See you down the road!

 

Finishing Up in PA

We finished up our stay in Pennsylvania with some fun things. We loved our stay here. Lebanon, (where the RV park is located) is a nearby town to Hershey and the surrounding farming area is truly beautiful. There are so many big, beautiful farms and rolling hills. It appears to be a very prosperous area.

We went to the Hershey RV show just for fun, and saw some fabulous floor plans for fifth wheels and motorhomes. Sparky's favorite was the New Horizons fifth wheel floor plan, light and airy. It's a very expensive fifth wheel RV. If you just happen to have $109,000.00 for the sale price, it could have been yours at the show! 

Since a new fifth wheel is not in the cards, Sparky really wants to try to lighten up our interior somehow. It's so dark! It would be a major undertaking to paint the cabinets, and we think it wouldn't turn out nicely, so Sparky will try to lighten up the valences and we eventually plan to get rid of the black queen sofa bed and put in two light colored rockers and a little table instead. It's interesting how RV designers have trends just like the housing market. Everything was dark wood for awhile, and now it's farmhouse white and light. This is our current living area.

For one improvement, since we couldn't swap out our fifth wheel for another one, we decided to replace the mattress that came with our used rig for a different one. It was a king, very thin, poorly supported 6" thick Beautyrest. Both of us had been having a lot of back issues and sciatic problems, so we thought maybe if we got a new mattress, that would help! Now the problem is, you can't get a traditional mattress thru the narrow front door of the RV without bending the heck out of it, especially if you need a KING. So what are our options if Sparky wouldn't go any smaller? A mattress in a box! It's the latest "thing" in mattresses....saves lugging the big thing home in a truck, or having to have it delivered if you don't have a truck, and for RVers, a piece of cake to get it inside and set it up. We went from an RV king mattress which is 72" X 80" to a regular king mattress which is 76" X 80". As soon as we started to take off the outer layer of plastic, the mattress started to make noise....."PSHSHSHSHSHSHHHHHH...." We thought it might explode right out of the bag, haha, but it didn't. Once all the plastic is off, you can see it expanding slowly in front of your eyes. You wait about 24-48 hours for the internal coils and foam to fully expand before sleeping on it. It has really made a difference in the amount of support and we are both sleeping much better with the new mattress!

Sparky went riding back out on the Lebanon Valley Trail a few more times. The trail is being majorly resurfaced in the worst areas with a crushed cinder/sand combination plus asphalt paving in some sections--woo hoo! Wonder what the story is behind this umbrella? Did the wind catch it and toss it to the trees? Did someone purposely throw it up there?

You never know what you might see on a trail! Sparky thinks "deer" but sometimes it's something else. Yep--several chickens and roosters! 

Or a rat snake....This one seemed like a big one!

We checked out the Hershey Museum, about all things chocolate and Milton Hershey, an amazing businessman for his time. Did we mention that many of the streets in downtown Hershey have names like Chocolate and Cocoa Avenues? And that 55 of their street lamps are shaped like wrapped Hershey kisses and 52 are shaped like unwrapped ones? Hershey's kisses used to be individually wrapped of course, from 1907 to 1921 until someone invented a machine to wrap them. From 1942 to 1949, the production of Hershey's kisses totally stopped because there was no aluminum foil available due to the war effort.

Remember Hershey-Ets?

The museum was really great. Milton Hershey was a businessman ahead of his time. Armed with only a fourth grade education, at the age of 18, he began his own business of making caramels, then switched to chocolate, because chocolate was a burgeoning, booming market back in the early 1920's. Hershey was a visionary, he believed that happy workers were productive workers and he designed the town around his factory to be a place where people could own their own homes at affordable prices, enjoy their time away from work through recreational activities, and that they should have a say in how the company was run. If he took care of workers' needs, they would be happy to work for his company and they were. Hershey's company workers came up with many productive and innovative ideas that made Hershey chocolate company world famous. He felt education was so important that he donated all of his entire fortune three years after his wife died, to found the Milton Hershey Industrial School for orphaned boys in 1909. The school has become well known now for its providing an enriched environment for children who come from struggling families.

And last but not least, we found an excellent Mexican restaurant in the nearby town of Palmyra, called Rey Azteca. We highly recommend it if you are in the area. A big menu to choose from, really good street tacos (Sparky's favorite) and a ton of choices of burritos. 

And with that, we say goodbye to a fabulous stay in Pennsylvania. Sparky will miss that beautiful Lebanon Valley Trail, but there are more trails to come. If you stay at the Thousand Trails Hershey Park in Lebanon, PA, the trailhead closest to the park is called the Colebrook Trailhead.

It's on to Ohio, to Kenisee Lake Thousand Trails park for four days. We are going to an apple orchard, going to see a few covered bridges, and attend a grape/wine festival. There are over 30 wineries in the Lake Erie area where we will be staying!