Chocolate Time with a little Granny Smith Sprinkled In!!!!

Well, we have officially began the odyssey at this point.  We are on our own and only the open road is in our sights!!!  We are heading northwest out of Washington D.C. and going through the great state of West Virginia.  Birthplace to one...Courtney Roseanne Foster, whose 22nd birthday was yesterday I may add!!!  Happy Birthday Court, we love you!!!!  Our first stop was in Martinsburg WV, a little town in the panhandle of the state that was the site of my grandparents house for several years,  I lived here as a young tyke for awhile and this wonderful city is also the meeting place for my parents back some 30 odd years ago.  Thanks for that by the way, because without that event happening I wouldn't be out experiencing America right now!!!  This place hadn't changed at all, since the 80's that I remember!  Even the old theater that I saw such great flicks like "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Spaceballs" still looked the exact same!!! Wow, what a flood of memories!  Even my school that I attended for 2nd and 3rd grade looked exact, with the exception of a snazzy new painted sign!

Burke Street School- Home of Mrs. Silver (2nd Grade) and Mrs. Whipp ((Snyder) 3rd Grade)

Hershey, PA

On the road again...fast forward two hours and we are pulling in to heaven on earth...Hershey, Pennsylvania.  The only place on earth where we can get six glasses of chocolate from around the world and Laura won't yell at me for wanting a Hershey sundae as well!  We pulled into town and promptly parked at the Hershey Museum and Factory and nestled up to the bar and ordered the biggest chocolaty sundae I've ever seen. As I was paying for this monstrosity Laura taps me on the shoulder and says look at this.  It was a "Tasting of Chocolate From Around the World."  Without missing a beat I twirled around and ordered one of these as well.  It took all of one hour for us to be done with chocolate forever!  (Or the next day, but who's counting)  As we waddled out to the car, we decided to head up the road to Granny Smith's House!!!

Chocolate Tasting From Around the World!!!
Yummy!!!

The next part of this trip was without a doubt one of our most pleasant surprises yet!  It had been over 10 years since Laura had the chance to see her Paternal grandparents.  With us only being two hours away at this point, how could we possibly pass up the opportunity?  So we headed North...to Mansfield, PA,  Home of Grandpa and Grandma Smith, two of the most amazing people I've ever met.  These two have been together for over seventy years and still joke and kid with each other like they've been best friends forever.  As we pulled onto their farmhouse located on 14 acres of rolling hills and gardens, we realized we were definitely in the Old Country.  This place was marvelous with no other sound in sight, other than the birds and animals we could see in the woods!  When we arrived Granny Smith made us some of the best ham sandwiches we've ever tasted.  She had loaves upon loaves of fresh bread she had been making all day and and the smell just permeated the house and provided a feeling of comfort not matched by any other place we've been.  After a while, Grandpa Smith arrived home from work and we sat and had dinner and swapped stories.  It was almost an interview process we put this wonderful couple through.  I mean honestly, how often do you get to sit down with a couple that are both approaching 90, but are so full of life and strong mind, that they recall memories as if they just happened yesterday.  I don't even know where I was yesterday!!!  The Granny Smiths' were so wonderful and comforting, I know Laura and I will look back on this trip and remember these 24 hours forever and all the history we learned!  We love you guys!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Smith!!!!

Washington D.C.

Well, as our exciting week was ending with Daniel and Lacy, another great surprise was in store right around the corner.  Our great friends Andy and Liz drove down from Boston and hung with us for a tour of the Nation's Capitol! They got down early Friday morning after driving all night and met us at the hotel in Tyson's Corner, and we promptly did what Joey and Andy always do...eat!!!!   After a wonderful complimentary breakfast from the hotel, Andy and Liz retired to their room for an afternoon siesta.  So I figured if their taking a nap, we should too!  After waking at about 3 pm, we decided to brave the traffic and have a nice lunch/ dinner at Gordon Biersch!!!  So after some tall beers and a huge banana split we headed back to the room and awaited Daniel and Lacy's arrival. Shortly thereafter, we decided to take a ride into DC and take some photos!!!  We were having a grand ol' time until we realized we had no gas and had to traverse the crazy streets of Washington looking for a gas station.  We finally found one, prices were a little high, but we had to have it.  One Problem however, this particular gas station also served as the citys cab stop.  At every pump sat an empty cab with no one around.  We sat in the car for about 4 minutes before Lacy lost her shit and ran inside and yelled at the entire gas station.  Hilarity ensued!!!  Needless to say, they promptly moved out of our way and we were back in action.
The next day we did Washington.  We toured around the mall, the Washington Monument, and the new World War II memorial.  This was really neat to us.  I had never seen this before and it was absolutely beautiful.  I especially liked that every state was represented by its own column.  Andy and Liz also got a chance to go hang with Lincoln and see the Korean War and Vietnam War memorials.  We ate ice cream on a park bench in the shade!!!  Sounded like a good trade off!!!  After this we all met up and went to the holocaust museum.  Lot of info and a beautiful museum, not really a fun place to go though, but very informative!!!  At this point we had had enough and it was time for dinner!!!  Where should we go?  Ahhh, to Gordon Biersch of course!!!  It was so good yesterday, why not?  We all had a great time!!!  We want to thank Andy and Liz for meeting us in Washington and also to thank Daniel and Lacy for hanging with us through the weekend together!!!  Its friends like these that make Laura and I realize when we do decide to return home, we have good people to keep us company!!!  Thank you all!!!

Daniel And Lacy's

What a wonderful week.  What started as a bad omen with the storm at Assateague Island quickly became a godsend.  Everything was perfect when we arrived to Hamilton, Virginia.  We met up with Daniel and Lacy and stayed at their parents house for the week.  We were there from Sunday to Thursday and man did we enjoy ourselves!!!  Besides the fact that they live in a mansion on 15 acres of rolling hills, they also bred horses for shows.  So not only were we living the high life for a few days, we were also playing with some of the best show-horses in the business.  We took this time to eat tons of great food and to take in all the sites and sounds of this quaint little area surrounded by mountains on all sides.  We drove down to Luray, VA and saw the beautiful caverns there and then proceeded to run record time through the garden maze.  We then took a drive on the 30 mile Skyline Drive.  Midway through we came across a campground store and bought all kinds of goodies for one of the most perfect picnics ever.  Another day, we visited the old Colonial town of Harper's Ferry and took in all the breath taking views of the Shenandoah River!!!  How beautiful...I'm not really sure how West Virginia got such a bad rep!  Thank you Daniel and Lacy for playing tour guide and taking us around to see all the beautiful sites around and sampling some of the best food around.  We will experience many fond moments during this trip, but Laura and I will never forget how perfect this week was and how we couldn't have scripted it any better!!!  We love you guys!!!