Sprinting (for us) South with a Visit to Hershey PA…

With our plan to slowly move down the east coast of Massachusetts thwarted by hurricane Jose we decided to move inland. Sharon was also able to get an appointment at the Mayo in Jacksonville Florida earlier than we had planned so we decided since rain was predicted for most of New England for the next two days  we'd just make a beeline south. We traveled like we never have before.

Before moving south though we were able to meet up with Imperial Bonita Estates (IBE) friends, Jean and Roy, whom we first met in Florida. They have a place on a lake in northern New Hampshire so we drove up to visit them. What a nice place they have and what a great day we had visiting them. They even treated us to a pontoon boat ride around the lake they are at. What a treat it was getting back on the water. For those of you that don’t know IBE is just north of Naples Florida and it was hit very hard by Hurricane Irma. Our friends have a place there and it will need a lot of work on it before they can get back to their winter home in Florida.

We moved on three consecutive days traveling about 200 miles each day with the endpoint being back at our friend's farm near Toms Brook Virginia. We usually only like to travel less than 150 miles and stay no less than two nights in order to have some time to explore each area a bit before moving on. Sharon also wants to make a short trip back to Raleigh to be a part of Katie's initial wedding gown shopping.  So by making this mad dash we hoped to make up most of the time we need for a short visit to see Katie and arriving in Jacksonville in October.

Our first day was leaving New Hampshire around New York City into Massachusetts and finally as far as the Danbury Connecticut Welcome Center at Exit on 1 Interstate 84N at Mile Marker 2.5. This would be our first ever stopover for the night in a rest area. What made us choose one was Connecticut allows overnight stays in their rest areas and even has a separate parking area for RV’s away from the truckers.

After traveling 210 miles we were happy to settle in and disconnect the car. We still wanted to check out the nearby towns even though we had less time to do so. Danbury Connecticut is a nice sized town with an interesting downtown area but we didn't;t have time to really explore it. We then drove across the New York state line to Brewster NY. It was not as interesting a downtown and much smaller than Danbury but we did find a brewery called Bull & Barrel Brewery. It had decent though not spectacular beer but was WAY too pricey for our tastes.

The next day we traveled through New York and New Jersey into Pennsylvania driving about 275 miles. We pulled into the Hollywood Casino in Grantville PA. They allow overnight parking in their lot (no hook ups for the 2nd night in a row). We set up and unhooked the car and made the drive over to Hershey PA. We took the free tour at the Hershey Chocolate Factory and really enjoyed it. We couldn’t leave without having some Hershey Ice Cream as we remembered loving the Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream enjoyed In Pennsylvania during our first year as full-timers. We also ate out at a small diner that was well, underwhelming so no need to mention it especially since it may have been the worse Philly Cheesesteak I ever had! Bummer. Oh well…

The next day we drove the remaining 210 miles south through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia settling at last at our friend's farm in Virginia… Whew!!! Over 600 miles in three days is traveling fast for us. Normally this would have taken us at least ten days to move this far but at least we are now back on track to continue our slow trek south....…

NOTE: We are near Toms Brook Virginia and will spend about a week here before heading south to spend some time with our daughter who recently got engaged in North Carolina…