Chocolate, Need I Say More?

    No visit to this area is complete without a visit to Hershey, PA. We took the opportunity to drive over and visit “The Sweetest Place on Earth”. Kate, the campground owner, volunteered to watch Misty for us so we booked a hotel room in Lancaster and headed to Pennsylvania. Once you got outside of the Philadelphia metro area, the countryside opens up and is dotted with rolling farmland. Miles and miles of cornfields interspersed with alfalfa fields. If you missed the town welcome sign (pictured above), or the streetlights along Chocolate Ave., you can’t miss the overall smell of chocolate that drifts over the town. You know you’re at the epicenter of one of the best known chocolate manufacturers in America. 

    The streetlights alternate between a wrapped Hershey’s Kiss and an unwrapped one. 

    You can’t really tour the actual factory anymore, but Hershey has set up a place called “Chocolate World” for the millions of visitors that come through. Here there are several interactive activities and an informative ride through a replica of the chocolate making machines that are in use today. You can package your own bag of kisses from the conveyor line. You can make your own dessert and then eat it! There is a chocolate tasting seminar where you can sample a wide variety of chocolates made from cocoa beans from around the world. You can take a trolley ride through town and see historical places of interest, while singing along with your tour guides (yes, you do sing and a song sheet is provided so you can’t say that you don’t know the words!). At various stops along the way, you get to sample some of Hershey’s signature chocolate products. 

    Molds of Hershey bars. Now if only I had marshmallows and graham crackers...

    Kisses rolling off of the production wheel. I think that I consumed at least this many today alone!

    Hershey itself grew up around the plant. It was originally known as Derry Church, PA. It’s named was changed in 1906 after the chocolate product became widely known. Milton Hershey envisioned a complete community surrounding his factory. Complete with affordable housing, quality public schools and transportation, abundant recreation and cultural opportunities. He built a model town based on this concept and we see that today in Hershey. In fact, he wanted an amusement park and built what was then called Hershey Park. It is still in operation and is known today as Hersheypark. There are several roller coasters and carnival type rides along with a large outdoor concert hall right next to the plant. 

    The Hersheys were not able to have children, so in 1909 Milton started a school for boys who were orphans or who could not get a good education. Why only boys you ask? Well, at the turn of the century it seems that family members seemed to find homes and care for disadvantaged or orphaned girls. The Hersheys saw a predominance of boys who had no homes or family or any means to better themselves so they opened the school for boys. In the late 1960’s the school began accepting girls and now is about 50/50 split among the genders. Milton also saw to it that each graduate (the school provided education First grade through High School) received a $100 bill which he could use to start his new life. That tradition continues today. But there are also scholarships available that provide thousands of dollars towards tuition and provide the student with computers to help them in the pursuit of higher education.

    Chocolate syrup being bottled. Got Milk anyone???

    Later in September, we will be back in Hershey to attend the country’s largest RV show. At this show, many of the RV manufacturers introduce what is new in their coming year’s line of products. Vendors also abound offering a wide variety of things that the RVer can’t live without. Should be fun!

Parasailin’ at Cape May

    Hot, hot, hot. Not the chorus of a song, but a statement of the weather every day. There is a rule in the campground that we quit working when the heat index reaches 95 degrees. That has happened every day this week. Sometimes by 10:00 am!!! Unfortunately, this is not the only place in the country suffering. Seems this heat wave is gripping most of the states east of Colorado. I’ve even talked with some of our Canadian friends here in the Park and it’s still this hot even in Montreal! Gotta go to the North Pole to get some relief. 

    Anyway, we braved the heat indexes and drove down to Cape May to go parasailing. Barb found this “Groupon” online that offered a trip at half price. So we scheduled it for today, not knowing it would be the hottest day on record. We got to Cape May a little early, so we trekked down to the State Park beach where we had been before (see the blog of June 16th). As we walked on the sand out to the surf, Barb’s feet got blistered! Literally blistered from the hot sand! This was at 10:30 am. 

    We made it to the water and soaked for an hour or so but, without a beach umbrella, the sun was merciless. We crossed the sands yet again, this time Barb wore her sandals, choosing sandblasting her feet as opposed to frying them again. After washing our feet off, we headed for the dock to get ready for our trip. 

    Due to the fact that the water is so cool and the air is so warm, there was a lot of fog just offshore. This fog caused the morning parasailors to get back in later than expected. We sat out under a small picnic table umbrella waiting in the 121 degree heat index day. Global warming is alive and well in New Jersey!! Finally we boarded the boat and with ten other hardy souls headed out to sea. Magically, as we left the harbor and got into open water the air temperature dropped at least 20 degrees. It felt great. Finally, a cool breeze while speeding out on a relatively smooth sea. 

    Above is a view of the Cape May beaches from our boat. Anyway, the jist of parasailing (for those not familiar with it) is you don a harness not unlike the swingset seats you see on public playgrounds only with some extra straps to hold you in. When it’s your turn, you scoot back to the fantail at the back of the boat and are hooked up to a large parachute that is connected to the boat by a tether cord. At a signal from the Captain, the tether line is let out from the moving boat, the ‘chute fills with air, and you are lifted behind the boat and into the air. About 500’ of line is played out and you hover somewhere around 325-375’ above the water. 

    Getting the parachute rigging ready for the first group of two.

    Off they go. You like the “Happy Face” parachute? You can see this thing from all over. 

    The view as you leave the boat and rise into the air.

    The view was remarkable. One of the parasailors saw dolphins on their ride. We didn’t see any dolphins, but saw dozens of stingrays. They appear as a brownish diamond floating just under the surface of the water. We saw them in groups of twos and threes and one group of nine!

    A view of me taking in the view. Gotta love the hair!!

    As we were reeled back into the boat, the Captain was kind enough to gently drag us through the surf! A kind of baptism for parasailors. He slows down and you gently drop into the ocean and drag your legs in the water (getting pretty well soaked in the process). It was great fun and a great way to escape the heat. 

Barnegat Lighthouse

    We haven’t been venturing too far from the motorhome lately. It’s been too hot and humid to enjoy any outings. Now, I know that it isn’t nearly as hot as back in Kansas, but that is one of the reasons that we are mobile. We came to New Jersey thinking that the increase in latitude and proximity to the ocean would equate to cooler temps. Well, with heat indexes at or over 100 degrees, we have been proven wrong! 

    The weather finally broke this week and the humidity went into the comfortable ranges along with the temperatures. We jumped on the opportunity to get out and sightsee. We drove a little ways north and came to Long Beach Island (aka LBI by locals). This little island is the home to a long eastern coastal beach, thousands of tourists and beachgoers, and the Barnegat Lighthouse. The site of this lighthouse was considered one of the most important change of course points along the eastern seacoast for vessels sailing to New York from Europe. Sailors depended on the Lighthouse as a navigational aide to assist them in reaching their ports and to avoid the dangerous shoals that extended from the shore. In 1856, guided by recommendations from Lieutenant George Meade (soon to be General George Mead and the Commander of Union forces at Gettysburg!), Congress appropriated $60,000 to construct a first class light at Barnegat Inlet. (Lighthouses are rated based upon the type of light they have. Classes range from First to Seventh. ) The beehive shaped Fresnel lens is six feet in diameter, ten feet high, and is formed from over 1,000 separate glass prisms and twenty four bullseye lenses mounted in a brass frame. Turned by a clockwork mechanism, the lens rotated once every four minutes. The speed of the rotation and the 24 individual beams of light from the bullseye lenses gave the Barnegat Lighthouse its characteristic of one flash every ten seconds. The currents in this end of the island cause severe erosion to the banks and have claimed the lighthouse keeper’s quarters. In the 1920’s, local residents raised funds to build permanent jetties to protect the lighthouse. Today is sits a mere 40 feet from the waters edge!

    Since I lived in Kansas for most of my adult life, I haven’t had much contact with lighthouses. I have learned that the lighthouses were all painted differently, using different colors and patterns, in order to distinguish them to sailors. Barnegat sports the red and white halves. The Absecon lighthouse in Atlantic City sports a White-Black-White banding. There are 217 steps in a narrow circular staircase that you can use to climb to the top of the lighthouse. The lighthouse keepers made this journey several times a day carrying oil and maintenance materials to keep the light working in all weather. 

    Working our way up to the top.

    The view out to sea from the top. The lighter colors in the water are the sand bars in the bay. 

    Again from the top, looking out along the jetties that protect the lighthouse. We walked along this jetty to the point and hung out on the beach for a while. 

    Coast Guard vessel cruising the inlet area.

    We watched several fishing boats coming in. Both commercial (like this one) and chartered were doing a brisk business. 

    Up close and personal on the jetty. As we walked along this, you could see the small crabs crawling around at the bottom of the rocks. Once in awhile, you saw the remains of a crab that had become a meal for the seagulls. 

    A view down the beach at the end of the jetty. The water was a brisk 70 degrees, but felt good to wade in.

Allaire State Park

    Well, we finally went somewhere besides the movies and dinner. It has been kind of hectic in the RV Park as we had a whole herd of tenters come in to attend the three day Dave Matthews Concert in Atlantic City. They were a pretty good bunch, but the venue was really dusty and it took everything we could muster to keep the showers clean. Must have done pretty good, as we got several unsolicited congratulatory comments from the group. Anyway....

    Today we took a short drive northwards to the Allaire State Park and Village. This park is located in the town of Farmingdale and contains a nice picnic area, botanical gardens (with hiking trails), the “Village” is the restored Howell Iron Works Company, and the New Jersey Museum of Transportation. We spent most of our time in the Village but it is all very well manicured and interesting. On weekends and special events, the village is staffed by interpreters costumed in period garb who can relate to you the histories of the particular building that you are visiting. During the week, there is a skeleton staff and the place is largely a ghost town, but interesting nonetheless. The early development of this area included a sawmill and a forge during the late 1700’s. In 1822, James Allaire purchased the property and developed the Howell Iron Works Company. On this site there was a school, church, general store, blacksmith and tinsmith shops, a bakery and row houses for the workers. This, coupled with the large furnace and forge, made for a community of over 400 people. The source of the end product was a thing called bog iron ore. This ore formed near the surface in areas of poor drainage. It was removed from the nearby bogs and stream banks and refined (or smelted) using charcoal to fuel the furnace. They made their own charcoal from the surrounding forests. Products manufactured here included pots and pans, kettles, water pipes, stoves, sash weights, and architectural fittings. Around 1804-06, Allaire teamed with Robert Fulton and provided parts for his revolutionary new steam-powered ship (the Clermont). In 1819, Allaire cast the cylinder for the Savannah, the first American steamboat to cross the Atlantic Ocean. By 1820, Allaire was producing over 50% of all marine engines manufactured in America. Allaire enjoyed great success until the mid 1830’s when a series of events saw his empire crumble. The area stayed in the Allaire family until 1901. After a series of owners, it was turned into a state park in the 1940’s and has undergone extensive renovation since. 

    The heading photo is of one of the row houses. Here workers lived with their families. Rent was taken out of their pay. Downstairs was the kitchen and living spaces. Upstairs were the bedrooms.

    Inside the living area of one of the row homes. 

    Some had a small kitchen area in the back. Others used the fireplace in the living room for cooking. 

    Back in the bog area along the stream banks. here is where the bog iron was dug out of the earth. 

    Chunks of bog iron ore. 

    Some of the things made here. In the back center of the picture is a neat stack of what was called “pig iron”.  The molten iron was poured into molds in the sand floor and made into bars. These bars could then be shipped to manufactures for further refining and manufacturing of iron products. 

    There was a bakery where you could buy baked goods, or some of the workers could use the facilities to make their own bread for use by their families. 

    The General Store was the largest of its kind at the time. Four floors built of brick (the fourth floor can be seen on the opposite side of the building; the ground slopes and it is hidden from view in this photo). The basement or bottom floor held meats from the butcher shop that was on site. The first floor was the general store items needed for everyday life and the post office. The top two floors were for storage of items for later sale. Interesting to note, the building was made of brick. In order to keep the walls from bowing out and collapsing under the stresses, iron rods ran under each floor and were secured into the walls. On the outside of the wall, you can see the stars where the support rods screw into. Decorative and functional!

    Thirty cords of wood (logs cut and stacked 4’ high, 4’ wide, and 8’ long = 1 cord) were cut daily and stacked into piles. This intricate stacking was hollow in the middle and was filled with wood chips. The outside was covered in mud and the whole thing set on fire. Designed not to flame but to char, it took 24 hours to turn into charcoal that was then used to fire the furnace to melt the iron ore. This went on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

    All that is left of the furnace. Three buildings once stood here with this furnace in the center. The ore was melted and refined (smelted) and then poured into molds on the floor. 

    There were several more buildings on the property, but since we were visiting during a weekday they were not open and could only be viewed from the outside. 

     After leaving the Park and heading home, we drove down the road and turned right into Tel Aviv!!! We were surrounded by signs in Hebrew and by folks in skull caps and hats and dozens of guys dressed in Orthodox Jewish clothing. Seems that Lakewood, NJ (the town we were in) is a main hub of Orthodox Judaism and in fact is the site of of one of the largest yeshivas in the world! A yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional Jewish religious texts. Our path took us smack dab through the middle of the Institution. Quite a culture shock when you’re not expecting it. 

Cape May Point

    We had a nice leisurely day on our hands, so we decided to go to the beach. Something I’ve noticed about New Jersey:  if you want to go to a nice beach, you have to get something called a “Beach Tag”. What this means is that you pay a fee to get on the beach (kind of like a toll road). You can pay for a day, a week, or a season. And near as I can tell, a tag at one beach is NOT transferrable to another beach! Now we travelled a large portion of the Gulf Shores and never paid to get on a beach?!? Multitudes of toll roads and now pay for the beach? What’s next??? Charge for air to breathe?!? Anyway, I digress...

    Just a pleasant hour drive south of us is a little community called Cape May. This is about as far south in New Jersey that you can go. On one side of you is the Atlantic Ocean, on the other is Delaware Bay. It is a quaint little beach town with lots of shops and restaurants. In fact, Cape May was listed as one of America’s top 10 beaches on the Travel Channel. Cape May and nearby Cape May Point are renowned bird watching areas. Every fall, around 400 species of birds (and the Monarch butterflies) pass through this area in their migration southwards. 

    We drove through the town of Cape May and motored to Cape May Point. Here we “snuck” on to the beach to get a look. 

    As you can see, it wasn’t very crowded this day. The access point we came on to the beach didn’t say that beach tags were needed, so we just strolled right on. Later we found out that we were supposed to have a tag.  :-(

    Some of the “locals” hanging out at the beach. 

    On the west side is Cape May Point State Park. Near as we can tell, this is the only free access to the beaches in New Jersey! Here there are four different hiking trails all designed to facilitate the bird watchers. The trails vary in length from half a mile to four miles and they meander in and around the sand dunes and coastal shore. Here you can also find the Cape May Lighthouse (pictured at the top of this blog). Tours are given (for a fee of course) but we didn’t bother with that this time. Also on the beach can be found the remains of a WW II coastal gun emplacement. This was manned during the war and has since fallen into disrepair. There is a museum on site that chronicles the history of Cape May from the 1800’s to present and also has a nice display of the terrestrial and marine life that can be found in the area. 

    The gun emplacement on the beach.

    Just some of the birds that were hanging around on the day we were there. 

    The State Park is a nifty area. You have access to the beach, they have built several viewing platforms in which you can sit and watch the birds. There are picnic grounds where you can have a nice mid day meal. We will be back several times this summer and plan to make a day of it. 

    All around Cape May, there are homes with lavish gardens in full bloom. This is just one of them.  We have found this to be the case almost everywhere here, thus explaining New Jersey’s claim to fame--the Garden State.

    This is Lily Lake in Cape May Point. It is said that the pirate, Captain Kidd, would come ashore and replenish his fresh water supply from this lake. 

    All in all, we had a nice relaxing day and look forward to coming here again. 

New Jersey, Summer 2011

    Well, it’s been a couple of weeks but we have settled in nicely. Only one “nail biter” on the trip from DC to our summer home and that was in Baltimore. We had been seeing signs that vehicles with propane were not allowed in the Ft. McHenry Tunnel. We debated as to whether it meant RVs or not but took a detour at the last opportunity. Unfortunately, that detour took us into downtown Baltimore with its city streets and traffic. Next to a city bus, I was the biggest vehicle on the road. Lanes were narrow and traffic was pretty heavy. There was a lot of map reading and “discussions” with the GPS but we finally made it through. 

    The next item of interest is that it seems to me that all roads leading into New Jersey are free, but there is a toll to get out! Everywhere you go, there is a toll road. Tell the GPS to avoid toll roads and it routes you through some really small towns and roads. We finally made it into Absecon (our summer hometown--not pronounced as you would expect, but phonetically “ab SE con”) and found the next driving anomaly:  it is difficult, if not impossible, to make a direct left turn from some (but not all) intersections! You have to either get in the far right lane before or after the desired intersection (no rhyme, reason, or consistency as to which before or after!), then make a curving right hand U-turn to the intersection traveling straight through to your destination. This takes some getting used to. The last thing that we have noticed is that it is illegal in New Jersey for you to pump your own gas! Not only is there cash or credit prices (usually about .10 difference) but you have to wait until the attendant sets it up and fills your tank. Takes some getting used to. 

    Anyway, we arrived at our new digs for the summer and met with our new bosses, Rick and Kate. We got settled in to our new site and started work on Monday morning, May 16th. We clean and care for the showers, bathrooms, and clubhouse areas. So far we have done some gardening and cleaning up to spruce up the place for the summer. Hostas grow like weeds here, so we have planted several of them in the flower beds. We also went out and bought some annuals for the bed around our site (which is right next to the clubhouse, a new record for shortest commute to work!). 

    Above is the Office and Laundry room. We usually do a quick clean around the Laundry room every day during our shift. 

      There is a nice pool that we can use when not working. It will feel nice during the hot days of summer, some of which we have already experienced.  I don’t think Barb bargained for the heat and humidity here.  She was hoping for cool Atlantic Ocean breezes to keep it cooler. 

    New here this year is the Dog Park. Right next to the pool, the shaded area is great to let the dogs off the leash and let them run. Misty really likes it here and she has met some new friends that she can play with. 

    Some of the park’s residents have park models set up for their year round residences. Some here come up from Florida and beat the worst of the heat and humidity, then travel south to escape the winter cold.

    A couple of views of the clubhouse and showers. You can just see the nose of our motorhome just behind the clubhouse in the second photo. 

    Here is a shot inside the clubhouse. There is a full kitchen at the end, and a gas fireplace in the middle. That is an indoor shuffleboard table along the wall on the left. 

    Looking from beside the fireplace towards the back of the clubhouse. There is a piano in the foreground and a pool table sits along the back wall. 

    Showers and restroom facilities are a point of pride at Shady Pines. We work hard to keep them up to a very demanding standard. Just recently, we installed the full length vertical mirror opposite the sinks. 

    Our site is very spacious and well shaded. Above, Misty is trying to convince me that she needs to go for a walk and meet her friends at the Dog Park. We have a portable fire ring and picnic table at our site provided by the park. We set up our chairs and read or watch shows (so far mostly the NASCAR races) on the outdoor TV (located in a sealed alcove under the small window beneath the awning). The trees are a mixed blessing. They shade us from the heat of the day and keep the motorhome cool, but they block any chance of a satellite signal for Dish TV. Not to worry though, I found out that Dish will let you put your account on “Vacation hold” for up to six months. You only pay $5 a month and they suspend your account. You can start up again any time and get exactly the same service that you had before the hold. That allowed me to get cable installed to my site in the park and I pay essentially the same as I did with Dish. I can cancel cable at any time with no penalty so it is a great deal for our time here! 

    We haven’t done much in the way of touring. We needed to rest and recuperate some after the trip up here from Florida and our sightseeing in the south and DC. In the coming weeks we plan to venture out a bit and will share our adventures with all who read this blog. Hope you all have a great summer!!