We're Going to Rock Down to Chocolate Avenue

Tuesday, February 12th

JV at the corner of Chocolate & Cocoa Avenues

Monday night, after the bus ride from Providence, Team Spama-Management was invited to dinner at Fenicci's. The owner of the restaurant really wanted to make the Spamily feel welcome. All week he kept the kitchen open and invited us to stay as late as we wanted after the show. His hospitality was over the top! Being as there were only 4 or 5 restaurants within walking distance of the hotel and theatre, his welcome was much appreciated.

Francesca, Jeff & Karl outside Fenicci's

JV & Jeff after dinner.

What's that you guys are holding (I hear you wondering):

Yes, that's right, Jeff and I each got a certificate indicating that we finished our Lasagna.

(It was tasty, but not that big a portion...)

Wednesday afternoon Karl and I took a trolley tour of Hershey.

JV, a Hershey Bar and the Trolley

We saw the Hershey factory - the bushes spell "HERSHEY COCOA".
This is, of course, the largest chocolate manufacturing plant in the world. The air around town is often perfumed with the smell of chocolate from the factory!

Milton and Kitty Hershey's mansion (Highpoint).

The Milton Hershey School

Milton and Kitty were unable to have children, so they founded the school in 1909. Hershey signed over the deed to his 486 acre farm (complete with livestock) to the school and the first orphans (originally the school was intended for orphan boys, it has since been opened to disadvantaged youth of both sexes) arrived in 1910. Shortly after his wife's death in 1915, Milton Hershey donated his entire fortune to the school. At the time, his gift was worth more than 60 million dollars. He would continue to be closely involved with the school until his death in 1945. Toady, the school's endowment is more than six billion dollars; the school's assets include 70% of the voting stock in Hershey Foods and the entirety of the Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company (which owns Chocolate World, HersheyPark, the Hershey Hotel, the Hershey Theatre as well as the Giant Arena). The school has a current enrolment of more than 1,300 students and sends more than 90% of them on to college with a generous scholarship.

Of course, we also saw lots of the famous Hershey Kiss street lights!

They're Hershey's only diet chocolate - they're LIGHT chocolate.

When one burns out, they turn into DARK chocolate.

Seriously, though, the flags on the wrapped kisses serve as weather vanes!

Wednesday, a whole bunch of the Spamily met up at Chocolate World!

We spent the whole afternoon in chocolate heaven. We saw the 3D movie (complete with the smell of chocolate, a shower of bubbles and confetti and water sprayed from an elephant's trunk - it was quite something), rode the "Great American Chocolate Tour Ride" (where we learned about how Hershey's chocolate is made), shopped for all manner of chocolate souvenirs, and even enjoyed a chocolate tasting (we sampled 9 different chocolates from Hershey's milk to Scharfen Berger Extra Dark along with cacao nibs and a hot chocolate drink akin to what the Aztecs made). It was all one could hope for from Chocolate World!

Karl and JV hard at work on the "Kiss Assembly Line"


These animatronic singing cows were our guides on the "Great American Chocolate Tour". They sang to us about how Hershey's chocolate gets made.

The Spamily at our chocolate tasting.

Friday, Piper and I (along with Adam and Sabra) set out on another Roadfood Adventure! This time our goal was Amish bologna. After a few false starts and much aimless driving around of the Pennsylvania countryside, we arrived at the College Street Cafe / Seltzer's Smokehouse Meats Outlet. While the restaurant was nothing special, the bologna was something else. More like salami than Oscar Meyer bologna, Seltzer's bologna came in several variety's: sweet, double smoked, spicy and various combinations. We all enjoyed our sandwiches and even bought some meaty treats to take home. (This stop brought my official count of roadfood approved restaurants to 28!)

Piper enjoys her double smoked, sweet bologna on white with a side of tasty Amish macaroni salad...

Saturday and Sunday were two show days with little time for sight-seeing. It turned especially cold on Sunday and started to ice and snow, making the (already difficult) load-out on Sunday an especially daunting task for the crew.

A photo album of my snaps from Hershey can be found here.

Yesterday I spent the majority of the travelling to Nashville, TN. It was a two cab and two flight affair, but I arrived safe and sound in Music City, USA. Load-in here at the Tennessee PAC has gone well, now all we need is for all the kids to arrive safely and we'll have a show!

JV