As promised - I'm back with a little more on our wonderful weekend in Hershey, PA! Our weekend in PA was a Christmas gift from Ryan; we knew it would be a delayed trip because the intent was to go to Dutch Apple Dinner Theater to see We Will Rock You, and also pop into the Hershey Botanical Gardens! Since We Will Rock You didn't start showing until the end of May, and gardens are usually better in the Spring/Summer - we knew we'd be looking at a trip in late May or early June - so there you go!
We were both lucky enough to be able to take Friday off, so after getting ready to roll and hugging our kittens goodbye (ha-ha), we headed for PA; more specifically we headed for the Green Dragon Market in Ephrata, PA! The Green Dragon Market is; in short, so many different things all rolled together - a farmer's market, a craft market, food stalls, a garage sale, a thrift shop - it's all those things and more!
We spent the morning perusing stalls looking at knives, Amish-made furniture, old glasses and comic books, knock off purses and bags, Amish-made baked goods and marshmallows, fruits and vegetables of every shape and size... seriously - I am barely touching the surface of what you can find! It's a bit of a treasure hunt; some of the stalls are definitely people just trying to get rid of junk, but other stalls are filled with gorgeous handmade jewelry, homemade bath and body products and so much more. Don't get me started on all the Amish-made furniture that is too beautiful for words!
After we finished our perusing and had lunch, we headed from Ephrata to Hershey and did a completely different kind of shopping - the Outlets at Hershey! They were conveniently located right across from our resort, so once we were done shopping, we checked in, freshened up and then met some of our family at the Chocolate Avenue Grill for dinner! Everything was delicious and it was wonderful to see some family and spend time catching up!
We were able to have a lazy Saturday morning and then headed to Hershey Pantry for breakfast - and it was divine! I had a Blueberry Muffin Latte that was to die for, and the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes were also incredible! I couldn't finish them all! Ryan loved his Brisket Burnt Ends with Eggs and the breakfast fueled us up for our visit to the Hershey Botanical Gardens - which has it's own post, ha-ha!
After our time spent at the Botanical Gardens, we popped up to the Hotel Hershey for about thirty minutes to wander around! It's a gorgeous property with beautiful views of the town down the hills in front. I persuaded Ryan to go to Hershey's Chocolate World around lunchtime, where we rode the Chocolate Making Ride (it's free) and shared a giant pretzel with cheese and chocolate dipping sauce! We also grabbed some chocolate for ourselves, of course! We tend to shop heavily in the Reese's section of Chocolate World, ha-ha!
We spent the afternoon poking around the Hershey area; we found some really neat consignment and thrift shops that we checked out, we wandered around the main part of downtown Hershey and I even found an amazing macaron spot in nearby Palmyra! Of course, I had to take the classic pictures of the Hershey smokestacks and the Hershey Kiss shaped street lights because they are just too precious! We were really lucky with gorgeous weather for almost the entire weekend!
Saturday evening was spent at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater; we had tickets to see We Will Rock You - a play that uses the music of Queen for it's storyline! This was my second time at Dutch Apple and I have to say, they do a very good job with everything and have some very talented people performing in their shows! The music for We Will Rock You was excellent and I enjoyed the show; although it was a lot more unique than I think either of us expected, ha-ha!
Sunday morning we had leftover breakfast from Hershey Pantry in our hotel room before getting our things together and heading out! We had a 10:00 visit at Indian Echo Caverns scheduled and so we made the short drive over to Hummelstown and we were thrilled to discover we were the only two on our tour - so we essentially got a private tour! Our guide did an amazing job and the caves were so interesting to wander through and check out!
This cave system is still active and growing; I was glad I had my rain coat because due to some rain on Friday night, the cave system had a lot of water in it - plenty flowing around the floor of the cave and drops plopping down from the ceiling too! This cave has interesting history; including a hermit who lived in the cave for the final 19 years of his life - we saw the portion of the cave he lived in, even where he slept and made his fire for cooking! It was a little wild to me to think someone lived in the cave - but the world had been unkind to him, so he just wanted to escape. It was a more than a bit sad.
We had a great tour and then cruised on our way toward home, making our final stop of the weekend at Tequila Willie's in Lemoyne! Ryan worked for the group of restaurants that include Tequila Willie's while he was in college and so we always love stopping by on our comings and goings to PA! The food is always excellent too!
We got home shortly after 2 on Sunday afternoon and our kittens were sure to let us know how they felt about being left for the weekend (we had friends come check in on them) with loud meows! We ended up inviting my parents over for dinner and closed out the weekend with family and checking out my Dad's new truck/car/vehicle...
