Lancaster and Hershey PA

Central Pennsylvania wins the award for most beautiful farm land in my book! Everywhere you look there are picturesque rolling hills covered in corn and wheat, beautiful barns and farm houses and Amish people riding buggies pulled by horses.

One way we could tell if a house was owned by Amish people was the way they hung their laundry, look at their huge clothes line!

Being in the Lancaster area made me feel like I got a glimpse of the past. There's still plenty of modern things around but the old buildings and seeing the Amish plow their fields, ride their buggies and run old fashioned stores brought me back in time.

Just up the road from Lancaster is Hershey! That's the very Hershey that makes chocolate! I wondered why there was a huge chocolate manufacturer in Pennsylvania and the answer is, milk! They need lots of milk to make chocolate and there's plenty of dairy farms in the area.

Hershey's Chocolate World was really great. There's a huge store with a factory tour (it's a fun ride that explains how they make chocolate) and tons of other things such as a theme park. We even got asked to do a taste test and got taken in a back room where we tasted chocolates and told them what we thought! The store and tour are free!

We stayed at the PA Dutch Country Thousand Trails for four days which was nice. Then we moved 10 miles up the road to the Hershey Thousand Trails for four more days. The Hershey Thousand Trails is really great! There's pickle ball every morning and the park is really pretty. It's more of a resort than the PA Dutch Thousand Trails.

We really enjoyed our time in the Lancaster and Hershey area!

Tahoe Tuesday

Hi! This week we've been enjoying nature in north eastern Pennsylvania. I've seen deer out the window and the weather is nice here. Matt and Michelle went canoeing today, the last thing I would ever want to do is go canoeing! Just thinking about all that water makes me tired...

I hope you enjoy a nap in the sun this week sometime just like me!

The Jersey Shore

We spent a little more than a week exploring the Jersey Shore between Cape May Courthouse and Atlantic City. I was surprised at how charming and pretty the area was. During our travels I've learned that if there's a beach, there will be lots of people and pretty houses, everybody loves the beach!

Besides the beach we of course went to the Atlantic City Boardwalk-

There were plenty of cutesy shopping places and farm stands up and down the shore-

There was lots of fresh seafood-

We also went to a great zoo in Cape May Courthouse.

This tortoise is being weighed-

We also celebrated my birthday with a good dinner!

We had a great time on the Jersey Shore and are looking forward to seeing more coastline later this summer.

Our First Harvest Hosts Stay

We've read about Harvest Hosts through the RV blog world for a few months now and decided we should join. Harvest Hosts is a membership (it costs $40 per year) with a network of farms, vineyards, flea markets and farmers markets listed for RVers to spend the night. It's an alternative to staying the night in a Wal Mart or Cabela's parking lot. The farms and vineyards allow RVs to stay on their property for one night and provide a pretty setting on their property!

We used our membership for the first time when we left DC and headed north. We stayed at the Dove Valley Winery in Maryland. The property was beautiful and the owner was extremely nice! You don't have to buy anything because you've already paid your membership fee but, we bought a wine tasting and enjoyed it very much.

I think we enjoyed it so much because the owner of the vineyard also had a 1976 Airstream almost exactly like ours! The Dove Valley Winery is a family run operation and the family lives on the property. It was very picturesque and lovely. We also got off the main road and mingled with the locals which we wouldn't have done if we didn't know about this place through our membership.

We plan on using our Harvest Hosts membership again when we get to Vermont later this summer. If you're an RVer this membership might be something you want to look in to. We've only used it once but I hope we have many more good experiences with it!

Tahoe Tuesday

I feel like I've said this before but, I've found the most amazing toy ever!! It's called a twist tie. Every time I find one on the counter top or on the floor I freak out for it. I really love it when Matt or Michelle moves it around so I can chase it!!

I've also become a big fan of peek a boo. I love it when Matt hides his face so I can't see it and then pops back out, it gets me every time!

What games are you loving this week? I'd love to know. I'll let you know next week if I discover anything else awesome!

The Air and Space Museum at Dulles

Have you ever seen a space shuttle that's actually been to space? Now we can say we have! We went out to the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport and loved the abundance of aircraft we saw.

Something interesting we learned is that after astronauts returned from the moon, NASA made them stay in an Airstream! They were secluded in case they brought back some crazy moon disease.

It's funny they used an airstream to seclude the astronauts. The Airstream certainly looks air tight and NASA worthy but there's nothing exceptionally airtight about Airstreams, they sure look cool though!

The museum also houses many other aircraft like this drone-

Tons of old unique planes-

How cute is this little plane!?

Helicopters-

The museum also has a great observation tower-

If you love aircraft then this museum is great and is also free like all the other smithsonians!

Tahoe Tuesday

Hi! I'm having a good week in Pennsylvania, we are in Amish country! We saw some Amish people on the road yesterday with their horse and buggy!

I'm going to get comfy on the floor now and take a big nap!

Have a great week!

Washington DC Zoo

The zoo in Washinton DC is amazing! I can't believe the variety of animals they have! Here are some of our favorite photos from the zoo-

This is an Orangutang walking the tight rope above our heads.

The absolute best part of the zoo is the Panda exhibit. Here's the crew working on Panda Cam which you can watch anytime online-

That's the baby panda in the background eating a sweet potato.

Mama panda eating bamboo! She was hungry!