Hershey and Harrisburg- August 20, 2023

      The plan today was to get up, let Abby swim a little, and go to the outlets and do a little clothes shopping while we were in Pennsylvania.  After all, there was an outlet mall right next to our hotel and a Disney Store outlet just a short ways down the road.  Julie vetoed that idea though.  Instead we headed back towards Hershey, which we had passed through two days ago.

     We've stopped in Hershey to ride the free Hershey's Chocolate World ride before.  This time, we were a little put off by the distance that we had to walk to get from the parking lot to the building.  True, it's summer and Hershey Park is in full swing, but it didn't seem like they wanted people like us to be able to get to the building.  It made matters worse that Julie's knee has been bothering her and it was pretty hot out already.  We made it to the ride, though, and the wait wasn't too long.  Abby enjoyed seeing the singing cows and the chocolate bars.  After we rode, we had lunch at the cafeteria there.  As Julie and Emma went shopping in the gift shop, Scott and Abby went around to ride the ride once more.  The line had gotten much longer by then.  Julie and Emma bought a number of treats for the ride home, including some black Twizzlers for Julie and some sugar-free chocolate for Scott.

     While passing through Harrisburg, we stopped at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore.  Emma had found a brochure about it on a rack somewhere.  It sells new and used books of all kinds, but its the atmosphere of the store that is captivating.  The store itself has apparently grown out of one building and into the insides of several others.  You can literally get lost in its winding, labyrinthine stacks.   It's hard to describe how fun it is to explore, if you are a book lover.  Scott had to buy something while he was there, so he ended up buying Neil Gaiman's Norse Mytbology and a book called The History of the Civil War in 50 Objects.  As he was checking out, he happened to ask if they had a science section.  From what the clerk described, he realized how crazy the layout of the building actually is and he and Emma went back to the basement to find the tunnels that she described.  Emma pointed out that there was a very good reason for the map that was printed in the brochure we had found.  It was wonderful to explore here.  We discovered that it is a truly fun destination, and one that we will return to on one of our Gettysburg trips sometime.

     As Scott and Emma were having fun getting lost in the bookstore, Julie saw an interesting though disconcerting thing.  She was sitting in the car looking across at some run-down convenience store, and notice what looked like a pair of feet sticking out of the door of the store.  She was shocked as a partially dressed woman ran out of the store and headed down the street, wearing a bra and carrying shoes.  She watched as a guy ran out into the street after her.  He tore off the black shirt he was wearing revealing a white shirt underneath, but he disappeared behind some buildings in a different direction.  Several people then emerged from the store on cell-phones, apparently calling 911.  When police showed up, apparently to look for the guy, Julie knew that they were headed the wrong way, and we drove by the officers to tell them what she saw as we started to leave and head for home.  We don't really know what happened there, and probably never will.

     The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful.  We took the scenic route across Pennsylvania instead of heading straight north and west.  At one point Scott whipped out the old-fashioned fold-up road map to negotiate around some traffic problems and managed an alternate route where the phone's GPS didn't.  That was satisfying.  Dinner was at the cafe in the Milesburg Travel Center.