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):
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!