Day 31: SOOO Much Chocolate!

Groundhog day?

We kicked off the day with what was going to be a 20-mile bike ride around the Capital Area Greenbelt, starting from City Island. However, both the heat and humidity were already so high this morning, that we were leaning towards an 8-mile out-and-back route along the river instead.

At the 4-mile mark when we were getting ready to turn around, we heard this big whooshing sound. Cooper thought it was a snake at first, but nope, it was his back tire inner tube where a bubble in the stem had finally decided to burst. Fortunately, we had athletic tape, which somehow held the remaining air for the entire 4-mile ride back to the car.

Spirits remained high.

We’ve been to so many state capitals (at some point we need to count), so we felt like we needed to at least drive by the capitol building.

Now with extra time on our hands, the kids hit the pool before our big adventure to Hershey’s Chocolate World. There were so many options there, but we settled on three things.

First, was a trolley tour of the area, geared towards learning about the history of Hershey’s and the town. The town of Hershey is lovely, and hearing all that the Hershey’s did for the town and their employees was inspiring. Of course, chocolate samples were included along the drive.

Next up was the Hershey’s Unwrapped show. This was a bit cheesy, but we each had a tin with chocolate samples that they walked us through how to best to taste. After that, the tour ride (a weird, semi-virtual experience).

We took a break from the planned activities to check out the store. We had no idea how many products Hershey now owns beyond the chocolates: Dot’s Pretzels, Twizzlers, Jolly Ranchers, Pirate Booty, and Ice Breakers to name a few. The amount of candy in that place was off was off the charts; Nicholas was in heaven.

Just when we didn’t think we could put another ounce of sugar in our bodies, we went and built two diabetes-inducing, one-pound customized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the Stuff Your Cup experience.

A small portion of these were enjoyed hours later after dinner. We then plowed through the sugar rush with a family round of mini golf at the campground course, featuring a not-so-family-friendly course design.