July 4, 2013
Happy Independence Day!!
You know what that means? CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE, CHOCOLATE!
Hershey factory and amusement and water park today followed by fireworks tonight.
Last night I checked online to see if there were discount tickets. The local grocery store sells them for $15 less than the gate for adults. Oh, and Sister Bear and Legoboy count as adults as the age is 9! Ouch! Family outings just got even more expensive since we had a birthday on this trip!
I thought the extra 2 miles (4 round trip) was worth $60 so we did that before heading to Chocolate World, Hershey’s chocolate factory.
Oscar found his home in the Barking Lot for the day. Clean, convenient, and inexpensive peace of mind for my canine friend.
We rode a ride that took us through the process of cocoa beans to chocolate bars and candy in stores.
Then some “sweet” shopping. No chocolate though because sunny at 90 degrees with 90% humidity chocolate won’t survive.
And finally headed over to the park for the day. There are SOOO many ride here that if you have even remotely small kids you need two days for this park including the water park. If folks are bigger then their day is eaten up with the lines for the 11 huge roller coasters.
Plus there are shows and seals.
The water park was a nice spot to cool down in the high sun of the day.
We saw some sweet characters
We had a lot of fun! 
After a long day we made our way towards the exit of the park to get Oscar before the fireworks begin. We stopped in a gift shop to check it out. I guess Carboy’s long day caught up with him because he hit is head on the corner of a wall, splitting his head open. This picture was taken just a few minutes after the accident!
The first aid wagon came and gave us some ice and a bandaid. We were just finishing up with them when the fireworks began so we made a dash to the gate through the crowd to grab Oscar, who we feared would be unsettled by the fireworks.
We got Oscar at 10:30 and settled in on the parking lot to watch the fireworks.
Nice 30 minute display of fireworks.
Took over an hour to exit the parking lot and then we traveled east about 30 miles to Spring Mountain Campground in Shartlesville, PA. This is a VERY nice place, nice pool. I recommend this park.
Happy 4th of July!