Hershey PA and Gettysburg Battlefield

We felt lucky being able to get a space withing 30 minutes of both Hershey and Gettysburg since it was labor day weekend. We decided to just "look around" the first day and that took us to Lancaster County, and the large Amish population in the area. It was a beautiful drive through the hills of Pennsylvania, passing many farms and seeing the Amish adherents working the fields with their horse drawn equipment. We ended up at Bird-In-the-Hand, PA and decided to look through the shops.

I have to admit, I do not see this at our local Walmart in Arizona! Walmart has constructed a covered parking area for the Amish and their carriages so the horses can get out of the weather. What a great idea! The area we are in you see lots of these carriages or bicycles being driven or ridden on the roads, I just wish people would slow down around them. The clip-clop of the hooves is a nice sound.

The market we went to was packed, as you would expect, with all sorts of baked goods, home made candies, pretzels, quilts, furniture and the like. After an initial trip through, we went back armed with a list of things we needed, or maybe just wanted. We came away with homemade pickles, homemade sweet cucumber and onion salad and of course bread and fudge, at least 3 types and some cookies they sell by the pound! Back at the park we ordered a pizza and wings to be delivered, they were both good and set us up for our trip to Hershey Chocolate World the following day.

Hershey no longer gives tours of it factory, instead they have a free 5 minute ride that takes you through an imitation factory complete with animatronic cows and candy bars that explain the chocolate making process, think "Its a Small World" ride at Disneyland, the lines were almost as long.

Why cows? It is interesting to note that Hershey is one of the few mass producers of chocolate that uses whole milk and not dried milk solids. The use of fresh milk, delivered from local farms within a close radius of its plants, remains a core part of Hershey's identity and a key differentiator in the global chocolate market.

The H. B. Reese candy Company was purchased by Hershey in 1963, seven years after the founders death. His six sons inherited the business and sold it to Hershey for a stock- for stock merger. They received 666,000 shares of Hershey stock estimated to be worth about $24 Million at the time. It went on to become the best selling product for the Hershey Co. by 1969. The original founder of the Reese Candy Co., used to work for Hershey and used Hershey's chocolate to make the peanut butter cups. At Chocolate World you can buy a ticket to make a Reese's cup and have it stuffed with you choice of add on's.

Another well known Hershey item is the Hershey Kiss. The kisses were first produced by the Hershey Co. in 1907 and were hand wrapped up until 1921 when the process was automated and the "paper plume" was introduced to differentiate the product from other companies who were producing similar items. In 1942 Hershey ceased making the kisses since aluminium was being rationed and retooled to make D Ration bars for our American servicemen and woman in WWII. They produced over 3 billion ration chocolate bars during the war.

After our ride we headed to the "Make Your Own Candy Bar" area. You have to purchase tickets but get to watch as you make decisions on what to include and design your own wrapper. What you get is a candy bar of your making, drenched in milk chocolate and delivered to you in a metal box with your own personal wrapper.

What better than to dress up in stylish aprons and snoods to make your own candy bar?

We are not the only ones that think making your own candy bar is a good idea! They are watching the items they picked to be added on be deposited on the base candy. Our day had chocolate chips, vanilla chips, cookie chips, and pecans. After these were added, the candy went through a shower where it was filled and coated with milk chocolate, then sprinkles were added if you choose it before disappearing into the cooling tunnel.

You had a choice at the time of a white chocolate or milk chocolate boat. Before you reached this point you had already used a touchscreen to determine which boat and add ons you wanted. You candy was then placed into production.

One of our candy bars emerging from the "enrober" which coats the top and bottom with milk chocolate. Since it is milk chocolate, the candy requires "tempering" and travels through the tempering process after this. Tempering involves cooling the chocolate covering shown above and then warming it up to a specific temperature to ensure it doesn't melt to quick in your hands and gives the bar its traditional glossy appearance.

Here are our finished chocolate bars, placed in metal tins with the self designed package covering. It was fun, but the crowds were incredible, I guess that is to be expected over labor day. Once the sugar high ended we were able to get some sleep and get ready for Gettysburg.

The next day we drove the 45 minutes to Gettysburg Battlefield National Park. We have given ourselves one day to tour the park, to be honest, that is not near enough time so we opted for the cyclorama, the museum and the self directed auto tour, with narration provided on the free National Park Service app on your mobile device and then choose audio tours of what ever park has them. The auto tour route is well marked and very well done. Had we planned better we would have hired a private certified guide who would drive our car and give us a detailed narration as to what we are looking at and the significance to the campaign.

The Gettysburg Cyclorama is 377 feet long, 42 feet high and weighs 12.5 tons The one on display here was the second one painted by French artist Paul Philippoteaux, a professional cyclorama painter and artist. The first was painted in 1882, took the artist, 11 assistants, one and one half years to complete. Philippoteaux was not at Gettysburg nor was he even in the States when the Civil War was fought. He arrived in 1879, and in 1882 he was hired by a group of entrepreneurs to create this massive painting for a special exhibition in Chicago in 1883. Philippoteaux arrived in Gettysburg where he set about making 100's of detailed sketches and talking to veterans who had been at the battle. He even hired landscape photographers to take detailed photographs for the different areas of battle, these were some of the earliest photographs of Cemetery Ridge, The Angle, and The High Water Mark. The painting received such public acclaim the he was hired to paint a second one for an exhibition in Boston during 1884. The park service purchased this second painting in its entirety complete with all the forground items of cannons, rocks, logs, shattered trees and such and put it on display. Today, after a major renovation it is the center piece of the visitor center and allows the viewer a 360 degree view of the battlefield as if they were in the battle themselves.

During the presentation, different areas of the painting are highlited to show the different charges and battles that occurred during the 3 day conflict.

This photo from the NPS website shows the high tech lighting and sound system used during the presentation.

The Gettysburg Battle was fought July 1, 1863 and ended July 3, 1863, with the retreat south of the remaining troops of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Gettysburg was not Lee's first place to battle the Union troops but the town provided numerous roads in all directions with which he could get supplies for a continued march north, he was fresh off numerous victories over Union forces and if he could get defeat the Union Army on northern soil, it would allow some European countries to recognize the Confederate States of America, effectively ending the United States as a Union. Lee also wanted to take pressure off of Vicksburg and relieve war torn and war tired Virginia. The battle was actually a chance meeting when Confederate forces found Union Cavalry instead of militia. Lee wanted to strike a blow that would cripple the Union and once here, decided to fight here.

This is a tree trunk from the battlefield that is riddled with musket balls and artillery shrapnel. It is estimated that 7,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition was fired by 165,000 to 175,000 soldiers over the 3 day battle.  The average soldier carried about 40 round of ammo, so the resupply was going on all night long when the fighting had ceased for the day. The casualty rate was around 51,000 making it the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. The day after the battle ended, Vicksburg surrendered giving the Union access up and down the Mississippi River. It was the beginning of the end.

This is the display of the cell door and weapons used as John Brown attacked the Harper's Ferry Arsenal. To do the battlefield you will definitely need more than one day, and we will return someday, perhaps with a Fantasy RV Civil War Tour. If you are interested, download the National Park Service App and search for Auto Tours, you can then listen to narrated tours of different Civil War Battlefields from where ever you are. For now, it was back to our rig and get ready to head down the road to the Antietam Battlefield, described as the bloodiest and most costliest battle, in terms of casualties, of the Civil War. Hope you can join us.