Hershey, PA

The last day of our trip up north we visited Hershey, PA. The amusement park wasn't open for the season yet, but we took the Chocolate Factory tour, ate lunch, and browsed the shops. Lon loved the singing cows! Kip loved the HUGE chocolate bar ($30.00! No, you can't have one! What do you mean, why not?!) There were entire rooms dedicated to a particular type of candy. Here we have one whole area of Reeses, and then an entire display of Hershey Kisses. It's a chocolate lover's dream! I was surprised when we got home, to find that we did the whole 3 day trip on one tank of gas! Excellent...

Gettysburg

After Baltimore, we drove to Gettysburg, PA and took a self-guided tour of the battlefield. There was a terrific view from a very tall watchtower, we could see Liberty Mountain Ski Resort in the distance with snow still on the slopes! It was incredibly windy that day, but the sun was warm enough to make it bearable. We climbed among the rocks at Devil's Den, a depression between Big Round Top and Little Roundtop, where a whole bunch of soldiers were slaughtered. You can see part of it in this view from Little Round Top, where the 20th Maine division held off a huge attack by the Confederates. I'm so proud of my Mainers! There are hundreds of monuments and memorials here, some small and unassuming, some enormous and elaborate. Living in Manassas, so close to another famous Civil War battlefield, we still found it hard to imagine the carnage in such a pretty place.

Baltimore Inner Harbor

For Kip's spring break we had planned to go snow tubing at Ski Liberty, but it was raining, so we drove to Baltimore, to the Inner Harbor. Yes, it was raining there too, but we were inside mostly, so weren't too miserable. Saw the USS Constellation, the sister ship to the Constitution, then went to the National Aquarium. Lon and Kip loved the sharks! (oooh, scary!) I liked the seahorses, but the pictures didn't turn out well. This was the jaws of a megalodon, a type of giant prehistoric shark. Kip would be like Jonah...

Surprise!!

I threw a surprise party for Lon's 50th birthday, and along with our closest friends, people came out of the woodwork that we hadn't seen in years! Bilbo actually flew in from New Mexico just for the weekend! Hadn't seen Skip since he retired from AAA Potomac, Brian in about 10 years. Marla drove up from NC, and Colby brought the whole crew from north of Thurmont, MD. Anyway, Lon was SO surprised, it was great! He kept shaking his head and saying, "I can't believe you got me AGAIN!" (I did it for his 30th birthday, 20 years ago. He apparently didn't learn from that... ha ha)

Bungalow Billy's

Lon's friend Chad came to town, so we met him for dinner, along with James & Shirley (see July'07 wedding). After a 2-hour wait (and a few drinks) at Sweetwater, we went to Bungalow Billy's to shoot some pool. After a couple warm-up games (and a few more drinks) things got hilarious. I haven't seen that much scratching since my last bout with poison ivy! Pretty funny... I learned a new game where you get assigned certain numbers, and you try to sink everyone else's balls while keeping yours on the table. I typically suck at pool, but promptly won the first game! Woo-hoo! We had lots of fun, and stayed out late, just like in the olden days.