July 19, 2012 … I love chocolate

Need I say more?

I was in the neighborhood, so of course I would want to go to Hershey, Pennsylvania, and check out the home of Hershey chocolate.



Yep, that's exactly it.  In fact, as I drove into town I could have sworn I smelled chocolate.,




Wrapped like it's in tin foil (lightpost).



Unwrapped, and brown like chocolate (lightpost).

The factory is visible, but it's not a tour. What you can do is go to the Hershey Chocolate museum. Which I did. The museum tour tells the story of Milton Hershey.

And through the doors I went, heading for a chocolate overdose.

He built the business which is very impressive, and even bought out Reese's (those wonderful peanut butter cups), invented a use for chocolate powder, (think hot chocolate), and revolutionized the art of making and selling chocolate candy … read kisses, including inventing a machine to wrap each kiss individually so the average and ordinary person could afford to purchase a piece of chocolate candy. I love that guy. Best of all, there are now all kinds of kisses, white chocolate, almond, white and brown chocolate, just chocolate. How do I love you (my little kiss), let me count the ways … or better yet, kinds and individual tastes.

Basically a bathtub, these were used to transport the chocolate to the next step in the process.

The kiss-wrapping machine revolutionized the sale of candy.  Now the ordinary person could purchase a little kiss of heaven.  Prior to this, candy was mostly sold in bulk so only the rich could afford the luxury.

Even more importantly, he cared for his employees, built them a community where they could take time off, play in parks, and own their own homes with low-interest loans, unlike in some other industrial towns. He donated money to a school for children, and I know personally one person who grew up there. And he grew up to be a nice and great person.

Wish I had this sign.  It's proof we should eat chocolate every day.

Heading to the lab.

The other thing I did was sign up to make a bar of chocolate. The bar I was signed up to make was a “beach bar.” This bar would have a “tattoo” of starfish, shells and fish on it, and would use graham cracker crumbs and sea salt for sand.

Do I look like a chocolate chef?

We all had to clean our hands and don a hair net and apron. Then we poured our liquid chocolate into little molds, decorated them and handed them back to be put in the refrigerator to harden.

Making my little bar of chocolate.

We even got to lick the spoons when we were done.  Don't waste any of that chocolate.

Meanwhile we got a lesson on where chocolate beans come from and how it ends up being something worth eating. The whole cacao bean, rain forest, harvesting process is quite interesting, and I have a whole new appreciation for chocolate and what Mr. Hershey did for those of us who love chocolate. I also am told the cacao bean is considered a fruit … so how many servings of fruit are we supposed to eat in a day? I'm into that kind of progressive thinking.

Beans, milk and sugar.  Pretty simple if you have the right combination.  One of these pods usually has about 75 pods, containing 30-40 beans, enough to make one standard-sized Hershey bar.  The trees can be harvested twice a year.

The moist beans are laid between leaves and allowed to ferment for a few days.  Hershey purchased beans from various bean farms throughout the world where they're grown, although all the beans originally come from one area, prior to being exported and planted in other rain forests.

One of the cacao pods.

The beans inside the pod.

A conching machine is used to grind up the beans.  It takes four days and nights to grind the beans smooth enough to use in chocolate.



It's almost this simple.



My chocolate bar.  I ate it all, too.  It would have melted on the bike.

From Hershey I continued down the road to something else I'd seen, Indian Echo Caverns. I like caverns, so I'd decided to stop and check this one out. While it's not Carlsbad, it was a fun tour, and I got some photos to share. The walk in and out involves 71 steps … many of varying sizes, so you had to be careful when stepping. I did not see any bats, although there are bats in the cave. Darn. I was kind of looking forward to seeing some.

I was also surprised to be able to take photos with flash … so I photographed away.

There were some beautiful formations, but hard to get good shots.

But I did get one or two.

So like caverns.

Dripping water has started a little stalagmite.  It looks like cooked egg white to me.

Had lunch and then headed to Battle Creek Harley Davidson, near Gettysburg. I figured I needed a shirt from there. By then it was late enough to stop for the evening, after 6 p.m., plus the weather was looking iffy and I didn't have a plan downloaded for my next stop.

Cute little piggy.

I love the painted animals I've seen.

Because it's Battlefield Harley-Davidson.

A Perkins restaurant did right by me … my favorite salad there is a BLT chicken salad with honey mustard dressing. It's been a long time and my mouth was watering since I'd first seen a Perkins sign. That particular problem and the accompanying drool has been taken care of now.