Historic Trolley Ride at Hershey World and the AACA Museum

 

Historic Trolley Ride at Hershey World: "Join your conductor on an in-depth sightseeing and chocolate-tasting journey throughout Hershey of today and years past. As you learn about the life of Milton Hershey, you'll visit all the historical sites in the town he created, from his birthplace and the original HERSHEY’S Chocolate factory to the famous HERSHEY’S KISSES streetlights and his historic home, Highpoint Mansion. And during your ride, sample the flavors that made Mr. Hershey famous too!"

Before boarding my 3:15 pm tour "trolley", I stopped in at the Visitor Center.

Certainly on a Disney scale, this operation with its 13,000 employees is a well oiled machine.

It has the largest Visitor Center of any major corporation in the U.S.

It's HUGE. Name it, they've got it with a Hershey logo on it.

Everywhere you turn, the area goes on and on.

An incredible amount of information was learned on the tour.

Every product has a history and a story. Did you know Hershey uses 50,000 gallons of
milk to produce 30 million Kisses every day?

And that a Kiss sits atop all...

...118 street light in Hershey?

Hershey Kisses are so much a part of the Hershey story that on New Years Eve, a 400 pound candy Kiss (aluminum and tin foil) is hoisted 400' in the air. 

Then there's Twizzlers. Enough is produced in ONE day that if you attached them end to end,
they would reach the moon and back FIVE TIMES.

3 million pounds of chocolate produced each day. Staggering.

A peek into Chocolate World; a story for another time. Let the tour begin.

Conductor Steve and Motorman Mike took us on an hour tour all around Hershey.

Needless to say, Steve moved into my Winner's Circle of Superior Tour Guides. He made it 5 for 5. I asked him about his training prior to becoming a tour guide. He said he had to learn a 20-page script and the rest he picked up on his own.  This tour and the existence of Hershey as a town is the story of Milton Hershey. What this man accomplished with only a 4th grade education was incredible. I'll try to share the snippets of incredible facts about a most remarkable man:

At 19, he knew his passion for candy making which began with caramels. It wasn't till he attended the Chicago's World Fair when he learned of the use of chocolate from Germany. In 1900 he introduced milk chocolate candies at 5¢ a piece and kept that price until 1968.

He went bankrupt two or three times but an aunt mortgaged her home to give him the money to continue his passion.

In 1912, while traveling in Europe with wife, Catherine, he received word that a problem had arisen that only he would be able to resolve and had to return immediately. He was to board a luxury liner with her but canceled and took instead a faster freighter while Catherine remained with friends. The ship they didn't take was the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

By the time the Great Depression hit, he'd become a millionaire. He built homes and sold them at cost to his employees. We saw three mansions he built for the higher ups in the company. He lived in one but because of Catherine's sudden death from pneumonia in 1915 that left him devastated, he left the home and traveled. Upon returning he occupied only a second floor apartment.

His most important contribution was what he did for the poor. He and Catherine could not have children so they built an orphanage for boys that later turned into a trade school at no expense to them. He built homes so that the children did not have to live in dormitories, rather, in a home with house parents. Today, there are many apartment complexes that house 4 students per apartment. They are given a budget and they carry on daily responsibilities with loose supervision.  It was a cost-free, private, coeducational home and school for children of low income, limited, or social need. It provides housing, meals, uniformed and leisure clothing, free educations, and leisure activities, including varsity sports, intramurals, and clubs. There are currently 2,100 students in attendance. 50% from PA, the rest from around the country.

The tour throughout Hershey showed all the factories which produce the long list of Hershey products.

"The Hershey Story. The Museum of Chocolate Avenue."

The Hershey Trust Building. When Hershey passed away at the age of 88, he left his
entire wealth to his "children;" the schools he and Catherine created. At that time,
in 1945, he left $60 million dollars. Today that trust is worth 16.2 billion.
The schools are funded just from the interest earned.

The Hershey Theatre built during the Depression. It gave employment to many during
Hershey's "Great Building Campaign." During this time he built schools, the arena and 
the Hershey Hotel. When the contractor brought in a steam shovel for the work, Hershey
had it removed and told the contractor to replace it with 40 workers. The theatre seats just over 1,900.

On a side street stands a gray house with red shutters. Harry Reese, wife, Blanche and their
16 children lived here. To make extra money, Blanche mixed chocolate with peanut butter.
Harry brought it to Milton to taste. Milton said it was good but didn't think it'd go anywhere
but he would finance his beginning operation with equipment and manpower.  He later bought
Reese's business for $13 million

The Milton Hershey High School. Founders Hall

One of the other high schools in town is Hershey High School. A big football event is to have these
two rival schools match up each year and vie for the Cocoa Trophy.

Hershey Park. Now up to 17 roller coaster rides. The original wooden roller coaster is still
in operation and can be seen in the lower left.

The town itself has a population of only 25,000 inhabitants but the number of tourists each day during the season could number between 30 and 50,000. 

A view of the original silos that held cocoa beans imported from around the world. Street
names like Caracas and Cocoa relate to this important ingredient. There are twenty-four silos, measureing thirty feet in diameter and stand 130 feet tall. Those silos when filled to capacity are able to hold ninety million pounds of cocoa beans.

Milton Hershey High School

Looking down onto the Visitors Center and its huge parking lot. Winnie is parked and 
hiding behind trees indicated with the arrow.,

Expansive as the parking lot seems to be, each October, for three days, it's completely filled.
The AACA Museum (which I plan to visit tomorrow) holds it's annual Fall Meet...

...where you can visit over 9,000 vendors, view over 1,000 cars for sale in the car corral, and admire the approximately 1,200 cars at the car show. It is said that if you walk along and visit
each vendor, you'll have walked 7 miles. About 100,00 folks will attend over the three day period.

Well, that's it for today. Tomorrow, my last day in Hershey, I will visit the AACA (Antique Automobile Collectors Association) museum before driving the remaining 3½ hours to Croton Point Park (CPP).

With the threat of sleet and icy road conditions hanging over my head as predicted via weather bulletins/alarms from my phone, I hurried and departed the Hersheypark Campground and made a dash to AACA Museum about two miles away. As in the past, at the end of the drive I had not seen a single drop of precipitation and temps remained the mid-forties all the way to Croton. 

The massive museum of 71,500 square feet on three floors was impressive both inside and out. It opened in 2003 and was the result of the vision of a couple of automobile hobbyists. Eight decades of pristine vintage vehicles are on display. 

On the first floor: Vintage cars from 1920 to 1950. Machine shops, gas stations and the Tucker Gallery.

The basement houses: Vintage model trains, motorbikes and busses

The Mezzanine houses the board room, meetings rooms, Sales & Events, office area as well as Region and Chapter meeting rooms.

(No flash makes for blurry images)

This is a must-see stop when next you visit Hershey, PA if you are even slightly interested in vintage cars, trucks, busses, motorcycles, toys, go karts, pedal cars. The number in review is staggering and plan at least an hour and a half to view both floors and the basement. Spic and span, wear white gloves. 

To conclude my blog writing for the Winter Season, 2022, I'll finish up in my "home away from home." I arrived at about 1:30 pm with plenty of time to set up and await my ride back home to pick up my Caddy. What a nice sight it was to approach site 35 in Croton Point Park (CPP). The roads are paved, tree limbs and branches have been trimmed throughout the RV section, out of control brush, bushes and grasses cut back, sites are level with Item 4 and new posts with site numbers are a nice touch. I counted about ten RVs already scattered in the area. The dumpster area looks the same but cleaned up. Sites are clean and trimmed. 

My site 35. Clean.  And yes, I moved that stick and yes, I've put in a request to have that picnic
table moved to the other side of my spot. 

For those who are interested in statistics, I've kept track of these:

Days traveling: 83

Miles traveled: 8,325

Campgrounds: 27

States slept in: 21

Number of stops for fuel: 38

Average cost for diesel: $4.418

Gallons of diesel used: 607.7

Amount spent of fuel: $2,647

Average miles/gallon: 14.27

Gallons of diesel emission fluid: 6

Campground Fees: $3,214

And best of all, for the DDDDs 

(Debbie Downer Diet Deniers):

I lost 6.4 pounds eating and enjoying everything I wanted.

I'm staying at CPP till April 30th commuting back and forth to my apartment as necessary. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and relatives again and the many dining experiences ahead. My next road trip will be to Nashville, TN with my Hudson Islanders group. Hope to hear from you again soon. Till next time, stay well, stay happy and stay safe.