Harley Davidson Factory Tour

Today we headed over to York with Mira and Rene to do the factory tour at Harley Davidson.  Since the guys all want motorcycles right now, it was really cool to visit here.  Although it was not a production day, we still had a great time seeing the plant and hearing the history of Harley Davidson.

From the website:
Established as an assembly facility in 1973, Harley-Davidson Vehicle Operations in York, PA. is the largest Harley-Davidson manufacturing facility. The York facility covers more than 230 acres and has over 1.5 million square feet under roof.
Employees assemble the Touring and Softail® models, as well as limited production, factory-custom motorcycles. They perform a variety of manufacturing operations – from machining, polishing and chrome plating, to forming, welding and painting.
At the Vaughn L. Beals Tour Center, you'll explore exhibits that detail the plant's history, and guide you through the manufacturing and assembly processes. You'll also have the chance to sit on current production motorcycles and visit the gift shop for tour-related souvenirs.

Your journey begins with an introductory movie and continues on the factory floor where you'll get a behind-the-scenes look at the people, processes and products of York Vehicle Operations. You'll be guided through various manufacturing and assembly areas, watch as parts are manufactured and see freshly painted and chrome plated parts. Then it's on to the end of the line, where every motorcycle is roll-tested prior to crating and shipping.
Over the years, thousands of Harley-Davidson enthusiasts have made the journey to York, Pennsylvania to witness passion forged in steel.

Hershey Chocolate World and Shady Maple Buffet

The first day we were here, Austin went down to check out the pickleball courts.  He came back to tell us people were playing and was very excited about who the people were.  Rene and Mira are here!  We were not expecting them so it was a nice surprise!  We played pickleball as long as we could meaning until the sun went down.

Yesterday it rained so we caught up on fun things like cleaning the RV and getting groceries.  Today we headed out to explore.  We went to Hershey's version of a factory tour.  Austin, Auburn and I went before but Nathan and Aric had not been there before.  I love this place.  It's Chocolate World.  What's not to love?

If you do the tour part, you get a piece of candy at the end.  Last time we were with Diana and she twisted our arm to go on it twice, just to get two pieces of candy.  As much as Auburn and I hate candy, we went along with it.  This time was even better.  When we came off the tour ride, there was a lady doing surveys there.  Aric, Nathan and I all qualified to do one.  Which means we got to eat chocolate while doing the survey and then they gave us a free full sized candy bar for participating.  Austin got the candy bar because he had to sit and wait for us.  We went to explore all the other goodies afterward and bought a bag of Hershey Kisses each. 

 

After all of that fun, we headed to Lancaster to try the Shady Maple Buffet.  We somehow missed this when we were in the area two years ago.  We quite literally stuffed ourselves in ways I am not personally proud of.  It was soooooo good and there was so much food to pick from.  Half of my plates were for the desert part alone.

We had a great day!  We're hoping the sun comes out tomorrow and warmer weather comes with it!

Living the life in the land of wonderful food!

Thank you...thank you very much....

That is now Austin's favorite phrase.  You are welcome, Austin.  Because I think I should be thanked for my insight and wisdom on this one!  That is what Moms are known for, after all!

I insisted that we go and visit Graceland and do the whole Elvis thing while in Memphis.  I mean really, can you even think of visiting and *not* doing this?

Austin did not really want to go.  My "I live for music" kid...didn't want to go and learn about Elvis.  He was not impressed with Elvis in the least and didn't get the whole Elvis adoration thing (no Elvis lover hate mail please-we all have our issues to work through).

He was appalled at the title "King of Rock" given to this man.  I say to him, ok...so do it for research's sake and you can decide for sure how off they were to give him that title.

Then we visited Graceland.  The first words out of the boy's mouth were, "He was a handsome man...I bet the ladies liked him some".  Some?????  Oh.My.  We have a lot of work to do here.

  As we moved through his house and he listened to the tour, I noticed that he was really..well, listening to the tour.  He let me know when I needed to put my headphones back on to listen to the tour.

Halfway through, about the time we hit the tiger jumpsuit, I could see he was impressed.  Dare I say, even inspired, by all of this.  I thought to myself, while grinning in that smug way that Moms do...my work here is done.

 

 

Then we got back to the RV, and the boy started doing Elvis impressions.  Complete with curled lip.  And he showed us his Elvis dance moves.  Except they looked more like Forest Gump than Elvis at this point.  Oh.My. So I still have a bit more work to do here.  It's a start though....he is at least thanking me...thanking me very much...for introducing him to Elvis.

You are welcome, Austin.  Now please...stop dancing.  Love, your short sighted Mom.

Gibson Guitar Factory Tour

The guys and our travel buddies did the Gibson Guitar factory tour in the afternoon.  I will have Nathan and Austin write more about this later.  They said they had a good time and learned some neat stuff.  The few pictures I have, are from Daryl and Diana.  Thanks guys!

 

 

 

Hummer Tour in Sedona Arizona

Last year at this time, we went on a whale watching tour together.  So it was very cool to do a Hummer tour together today.  Daryl and Diana have done one of these tours together, but this was our first time.

 

 

 

 

 

Based on the kids' expressions, I think it was a huge hit:

 

Living the life in Arizona!

Mesa Verde National Park~The Balcony House

This was one of the places that Nathan and Daryl visited years ago with their family.  It was so cool to now be there with their children.

In order to get to this particular cliff dwelling, you had to move through some pretty tight spaces:

And climb some pretty tall ladders:

Which our brave kids did with no problems:

Another perspective of the climb:

Once at the top, they learned all kinds of interesting things about these dwellings and the people that lived there. 

 

 

Tillamook Cheese Factory

Today we attempted to go and see the Spruce Goose, which we want to be sure to do before we leave this location. But because Lola apparently is being passive aggressive again, we ended up in Tillamook instead and she was telling us it would be 10 hours until we got to our desired city. We have learned not to argue with Lola, or we end up paying for it so we pretended instead that we wanted to go to Tillamook and thanked her profusely for showing us the error of our ways.

It ended up being a great move, because we went on the cheese factory tour that we've been wanting to do but didn't think we'd have time. It turned out to be very interesting and unlike Ben & Jerry's, they allowed us to take pictures here. Not that I'm hating on Ben & Jerry's, but really-did they think we'd crack the secret code just by snapping a few pictures? I think not! Anyways, back to Tillamook. We loved the cheese samples, especially the garlic flavored cheddar. What we really loved was the ice cream! Wonderful, very reasonably priced ice cream. Cones, sundaes, floats and all other sorts of creamy goodness. Yummy! How could I not know how good their ice cream was? Nathan swears we've had their vanilla ice cream but I don't remember. I will be adding it to the list of ice creams I love after this trip!

We had a fun day!

Shields Date Gardens~Indio CA

Today we headed out for some fun and we stopped at this neat place. I've seen a lot of unique things over the past year, and this had one of the more interesting ones:I never thought about the date having a romantic life, but apparently they do. I watched a bit of this movie and found it interesting that they hand pollinate the trees. I wish I could tell you more, but I was too busy gabbing with my friends to absorb much. I did have a date milkshake and it was very sweet which to me equals very good.

Davidson in Dundee Orange Candy Factory

Today we went with Diana, Lauren and Josh to a place that makes candy, marmalade and other goodies out of oranges. It is Davidson in Dundee, Florida.

First, and most importantly, they offer free samples of their candy:Secondly, the whole process for making the candy was very impressive to me. They make it completely by hand from start to finish and they make 1,000 pounds a day. If you look in the picture below, you can see the copper kettles that they cook the candy in and the big wooden spoons to stir it.Third, the candy was superb. I am not usually a fan of chewy candy, but this stuff was incredible. You could taste the quality and the richness of being made with real foods in each bite. The lady in the background of the picture was so sweet and made the trip even more pleasant. I love seeing places like this and hearing the story behind it. It's small town America at its best to me. Cheers:

Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour

When we first discussed coming to Vermont, I'll be honest, I wasn't overly keen on it. Not that I didn't want to see the state, but to drive so far out of our way for two days worth of sight seeing did not seem logical to me. Then my sister told me to go and tour Ben & Jerry's if we did go, and it was no longer an issue for me. As much as I like chocolate, Ben & Jerry's is the ultimate treat to me. This afternoon we went up to the factory to tour it.

Actually, we first drove to a field where a barn sat that our GPS *thought* was Ben & Jerry's factory. I am suspecting one of two things-my BIL got ahold of our GPS or Lola is mad at us. Either way, she led us astray twice yesterday and Nathan is still holding a grudge and letting her know he now has trust issues with her. I digress....BEN & JERRY'S! We got there. That's all that matters to me.

I will have to add pictures after borrowing some from Diana, because in the rapture known as Ben & Jerry's ice cream making up close and personal with free samples, I forgot my camera. And I didn't even care. Free samples. At Ben & Jerry's. Enough said.

When they said at some point that the workers receive three pints of ice cream a DAY, my kids looked at us like, "We're home". Aubs thought that was in place of a wage and thought it was an awesome deal. I suspect we may have to come here again sometime.

Rock of Ages Granite Quarry

This morning we went to Rock of Ages, which is the world's largest working quarry. We love it when we can see things up close and personal over reading it in a book (as much as we love books) and this did not disappoint. We met at the Visitor's Center:
And then we took a tour bus over to the quarry:If you click on the picture, you can see the men working down at the bottom of the picture.Diana did a sand blasting on a piece of granite:Then, Lauren and Austin went bowling on the outdoor granite bowling alley.
One thing that stood out to us was the granite that they used as gravel in the driveway and walkways. Incredible to see this expensive rock that is used as gorgeous countertops being used in this way. It shows the worth of items relative to their availability.