Category: Roadtrips

Right across the street from our hotel in Pittsburgh was a big grassy park with these really cool old smokestacks. At night they light them up with a bunch of spotlights on each one. It really celebrates Pittsburgh's heritage as a steel town.

The other thing we did on day two was visit the Indian Echo Caverns, also in Hershey, Pennsylvania. They were much cooler than I expected. I didn't realize there was so much limestone in that area. Some of the formations were really amazing. There were a bunch of school fieldtrips there that day, but luckily our tour group started right after the last of the schools had finished, so we didn't have to deal with any loud, giant crowds.

Day Two started with Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I think this place was nearly Heaven for Carter. There was chocolate and candy everywhere, and it was nearly empty as it was a school day. We met another family that was on a road trip from Missouri, and they gave me some great ideas of things to see when we eventually make it out to that state on a future road trip. While at Chocolate World we tried the chocolate tasting session, rode the tour ride, and we got to make our own custom candy bars. Unfortunately the candy bars melted in the trunk while we were at our next stop, and were liquified by the time we got to the hotel and wanted to try them. We stuck them in the fridge overnight to try and stiffen them up. It worked well enough to enjoy them a little before bed - but we had to toss them after that.

First stop was a the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in Connecticut. Carter really dug the dinosaur fossils, but she wasn't feeling fantastic on the first day and burnt out pretty early. There were very few people in there, so we sort of had the place to ourselves. The mineral exhibit was pretty cool tool - some of the specimens were enormous!

Carter and I just got back from her road trip. This time we headed west, and got as far as Columbus, Ohio by way (primarily) of Pennsylvania and New York. Along the way we visited a lot of cool places, which I plan to post about in upcoming posts. It was a great time - but we're happy to be home. The weather cooperated for the whole trip, although the temperature was all over the place - on the first couple of days it was in the eighties, but the rest of the trip was fifties and sixties at best. Ohio was a new state for me, and I've got to say that I liked it. Very scenic, and everyone there was super-friendly. So good job, Ohio!

Another of our stops was Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Sean got to design his own chocolate bar (including a custom wrapper), and got to watch it move down the factory line. It was a bigger place than I expected from the website, but that was actually good. Sean thought the "Chocolate Tasting Adventure" we did was pretty fun too. He liked that we had to eat the chocolate so "fancy".

We also visited the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ. It was pretty amazing, but we somehow neglected to take any pictures other than this one. Sean really dug this thing though - there were bubbles on the underside of the tank that he could pop up inside of and look around. It was pretty cool - I only wish I could have fit under there myself! All in all, it was great aquarium - I think I liked it even better than the one in Baltimore.

Another stop on our trip was at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. It was pretty cool in there - they had way more skeletons than I would have expected. Among the larger skeletons they had a brontosaurus, a triceratops, and a stegosaurus - but they also had a whole bunch of raptor-sized skeletons too (think Jurassic Park). Among the mammal skeletons they had a prehistoric elk with antlers nine feet across! The plaque said the antlers weighed more than the rest of the skeleton combined! They didn't allow any photos inside the museum, but we got this one from the outside.

The first stop on Sean's road trip was the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island. We didn't take many pictures, but that's only because we were having such a good time. But we did get one cute pic of this red panda lounging about. Looks like a pretty good thing he's got going on there.