Monthly Archives: July 2008

7/24 through 7/28/2008

We spent this weekend camping in Hershey, PA at the Hershey Highmeadow Campground, one of our favorites.

We had a really nice time…with the exception of a few minor meltdowns due to the heat and the crowds.

We spent our first day (Saturday) hanging around at the campground – just enjoying the nice weather, swimming in the pool, playing some games – Kathy’s parents even came up for a visit.

We purchased tickets for HersheyPark for Sunday, which meant that we could go on Saturday night for a few hours for a ‘free preview’ of the park.  Unfortunately, we were not the only ones on the park Saturday night – in fact, there was a record number of people at HersheyPark that night!  Between the Jonas Brothers and Brad Paisley concerts at the arena this weekend, the place was CRAZY!!!!

Emily was very excited to see that she was a “Reese’s Cup” this year and was tall enough to go on most of the rides.  Andrew, of course, is now tall enough to go on anything he wants!

We fought our way through the crowds and managed to go on a few rides that first night, but that was about all we could take and left exhausted.  Matt was struggling with his asthma, so he and Mike sat this evening out.

Sunday morning, we headed out bright and early – as guests of the campground, we got to enter the park an hour before it opened and enjoyed a few quick line-free rides.

As soon as it opened, Emily, Matt and Kathy headed over to the new “Boardwalk” – a huge waterpark filled with all kinds of fun things for the kids to do.  They changed into our swimsuits and played for about an hour…until it started to thunder.  At which point everything in the park shut down.

This was not such a bad thing – it was time for lunch and we needed to let the dogs out anyway, so we headed back to the camper on the shuttle bus and returned later in the afternoon after the skies had cleared.

Emily was proud to go on her first real roller coaster and Mike and Andrew went on a BUNCH of roller coasters including the new “Fahrenheit”– which to me looks just insane.  But no more insane than this one – the “Stormrunner” – which goes from a complete standstill to really-really fast at the very beginning of the ride.  Every time I saw the start of the ride and heard this creepy voice, I had my own personal little panic attack – and I wasn’t even on the ride!  Kathy managed to take a video of Andrew’s car at the start of the ride – take a look at this (this voice still gives me nightmares):

Andrew on the StormRunner

And here he is by one of the loops:

Matt doesn’t enjoy rides very much, but he waited very patiently at the ride exits for everyone to finish:

We made reservations to stay at the campground again next year – between the campground, the amusement park, the water park and all the other activities, this is one of our favorite ‘one-gas-tank’ trips!

Allentown KOA, July 4–7

It was an uneventful trip up on the holiday.  It was last minute reservations and I’m out of vacation time, so we had to travel on the holiday.

We were concerned about the dogs… Geddy had another diarrhea attack yesterday, so we weren’t sure what to expect.  The last thing we wanted was him losing it in the truck on the way up.  Everything was fine, though… we got here and the weather was deteriorating the whole way.  By the time we got up here, there was a steady drizzle… just enough to make it difficult to do anything.

We took a quick walk through the campground, it’s kind of small, but nice.  The dogs were a mess by the time we were done. 

We had dinner, relaxed and played bingo.  The weather should be a bit better tomorrow, so we should be able to get out and do something.  Our tickets to the Iron Pigs are for Sunday’s game.

Friday night (July 4th) was not a pleasant one… Geddy ended up getting sick throughout the night (from 2:00 on) and I ended up having to sleep outside with him because he kept vomiting.  We did a lot of cleanup work… not a good night.

Saturday was on and off rain all day.  We decided to head to Crystal Cave in the morning since it was weather independent.  Kathy stayed back with the dogs to make sure Geddy didn’t vomit all over everything.  The kids (even Andrew) really enjoyed the trip to the cave.

 

The upside-down ice cream cone stalagmite.

Some “flow”

The face…

After we got back, the kids wanted to try the pool… Matt didn’t last long saying it was too cold.  On and off showers all day, so we tried to just stay dry and enjoy ourselves.  At dinner time, the kids and I went to play miniature golf.  We had a good time, the team of Emily and I won, Matt came in second and Andrew was bringing up the rear.  Andrew had an impressive shot, it bounced off one of the rocks and flew about 4 feet in the air careening into a lake.  I had to use a net to fish his ball out of the water.

Saturday night was uneventful… Geddy made it through with no sickness.  Even so, we weren’t going to risk it, so Kathy didn’t attend the game on Sunday.  It was great, the kids had a blast and we watched the Iron Pigs’ pitcher throw a complete game 4-hitter while striking out 17 batters!

Coca-Cola park is really nice and clean and well laid out.  Not a bad seat in the place and there is even a picnic lawn area just beyond center field where you could lay out a blanket to watch the game.