Saturday, May 18, 2024

We conclude our southern expedition with a stop to explore chocolate & ice cream.

April has just arrived, and we are making our last stop in Pennsylvania, east of Harrisburg, in a small town in Lancaster County called Manheim. We have chosen to stop here in PA to visit with my brother & sister-in-law, Paul & Jen. They have lived in a couple of different states, changing postal zip codes just about every 4 years or so. Last year, our tour through the Industrial Midwest was supposed to see us visit together in St. Louis, MO. We made campsite reservations just outside of St. Louis, in a town called St. Charles, along the Missouri River. Unfortunately, our planned visit with Paul & Jen was not to be, as Paul took advantage of another transfer position, moving east, and ending up here, east of Harrisburg, PA, in a town not too far from the campground in Manheim. More importantly, Paul and Jen seemed to have moved to a location affording easy repeated visits, well within striking distance and a day’s drive from Massachusetts. Which means we can stop someplace nearby on either our way out of New England or our way back. 

While we’re talking about routes, I figure now is a good time to start talking about our next trip, leaving in early June. We are so excited, and much of the planning is already in place for an ambitious 6,000-mile tour of the Northern Rockies. We are planning for another 24-stop tour, this time of the northern US states, which formally starts where last summer’s western trip ended - in Wabasha, Minnesota. From Wabasha we will start moving west, through N. Dakota, then turning south in Montana, through Wyoming and Utah, before eventually turning back east through Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, and then again in Manheim, PA.  Another wonderful swath of the northern United States, visiting many states for the first time, and concluding with a visit with my family in PA. (See how we come full circle back to Manheim, PA? Funny how that happens.) We are really looking forward to the trip and will be providing additional details in an upcoming blog post.  

We had a great time visiting this region of PA. Not only was it wonderful visiting with my brother, but we got to experience the area in a different way than we had years ago when the kids were little. As a family with young children, we had previously taken a vacation to Hershey Park, along with extended family and cousins. Obviously, that visit was solely focused on the activities for children, centering on Hershey Park. Not this time! Hershey Park was just a bunch of buildings we drove by when going to visit other locations. Hershey Park was not open for the season, so the town of Hershey was much less crowded. What we did really enjoy in Hershey was the story about the man, Milton S. Hershey, who took a small, unincorporated village previously known as Derry Church, and made it into a destination location and the chocolate capital of the United States. What a story!  And the Hershey Story Museum was a great attraction for education on all things Hershey. Lots of information on how Hershey Chocolate came to be, the failures and the successes. The history and heritage of the man himself, and the great success of his legacy and philanthropy. But most importantly, it’s about the “chocolate”.  Add 5 pounds here please. 

Would you believe we found a fantastic transportation museum in Hershey? It's called the AACA Museum, and it showcases an amazing collection of buses, motorcycles, vintage bicycles, and, at the time of our visit, Muscle Cars of the Past and Present. We started our tour of the museum with the all-English Austin-Healey collection, which contained some fantastic examples of the British roadster of the 50’s and 60’s.  Apparently, Austin-Healey has a Sport & Touring Club here in the states, and the AACA Museum organized an extraordinary collection of cars which we were lucky enough to see. 

Austin-Healey Collection


1968 Plymouth Road Runner 383 cu. in. V8 engine

David Cammack collection exhibit with Tucker 48

The museum is also home to the Tucker ‘48s and the Cammack Tucker Collection, the most extensive collection of Tucker automobiles in the world. The gallery, named for Tucker historian and collector David Cammack, displays an interactive exhibit chronicling Preston Tucker’s vision, determination, history, and struggles to build the “Car of Tomorrow.” There were only 51 cars ever built and this museum has three of them. Through his Chicago-based start-up, Tucker set out to revolutionize the automobile industry. He designed innovative automobiles, unmatched by other offerings on the post-war American market. And if not for the collector David Cammack, the Tucker vehicles, the Tucker factory test chassis, and engine prototypes, would have been lost for all time. Instead, the entire fascinating story of the Tucker automobile is forever preserved. There was even a movie made about Preston Tucker calledTucker: The Man and His Dreamstarring Jeff Bridges.

No matter how hard I try, I just keep coming back to the topic of food. This time the sweet treat is ice cream. Not just any kind of ice cream, but the Turkey Hill variety. Turkey Hill ice cream and dairy products are from Lancaster County, PA, and in celebration of this family-owned dairy and ice cream business, one can take part in the immersive “Turkey Hill Experience”.  A place where all things sweet and creamy are on display for unlimited tasting (Can you say “all you can eat” ice-cream?) Turkey Hill was started by the Fry Brothers who purchased their father's dairy barn and added a dairy delivery service. Soon they were delivering milk and ice cream in trucks across the county. At its core, Turkey Hill was a dairy delivery service run out of a dairy barn that, in later years, turned into an ice cream business. Interestingly, the Turkey Hill name was given to the hill in the river valley by the native Susquehannock Indians and was within sight of the Fry brothers' dairy barn. It may be the brain freeze talking, but we think Turkey Hill ice cream is pretty darn good ice cream!    

This is the last stop of our “Fly South for the Winter” trip.  Manheim, PA was a short stop, lasting only a handful of days, but very eventful, with lots to do and see. The weather was not our friend on this visit, which is too bad because there are a lot of hiking and nature trails in this part of Lancaster and Dauphin Counties. We were hoping to get a hike in, but the weather was just too wet and rainy. But no worries, we’ll be back.

From here we head home. Trip concluded. Hard to believe we started on October 25th of 2023, and we are finally returning on April 7th of 2024. Here are some of the statistics. There were 25 stops of at least 2 nights or more. We visited 8 states, 4 of which we had never visited before.  Neil the Northport, aka “our home on wheels”, traveled over 4,600 miles. We had a blast. Thanks for following along as we tell…. the Rest of the Story.

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