Chocolate, Flowers, And A Full Hotel

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, my wife and I took our son on a little getaway this past weekend. With everything that has happened, we wanted to do something special and get away from everything for just a night. We didn’t want to go too far and we wanted somewhere family friendly were we could walk around. After all, this was his first trip and night away from home so we wanted something a little easier on all of us. That list of simple criteria lead us to Hershey.

Even though I was a little late in scheduling the trip, I got lucky and found a room available at the Hershey Lodge for Saturday night. With the hotel booked, we headed out late Saturday morning amidst the mist enveloping the highway. Just over an hour later and we were checking in at the front desk as the cocoa aroma flowed through the lobby. After a quick lunch at the Bear’s Den (decent burgers but I suggest you have the salt ready) we walked out front, hopped on the free shuttle, and made our way to Hershey Gardens (free tickets included with our room).

Not the greatest view.

The gardens proved to be a nice little walk despite the overcast sky. However, having spent more time at much larger places (i.e. Longwood Gardens) we covered the entire grounds pretty quickly. While not as impressive as many other horticultural attractions it was still a nice walk with a decent variety of plants, paths, and views. Here are just some of the pictures that I took with my phone during our walk (also the one at the beginning of the post):

Now much later in the afternoon, we walked back to the shuttle and enjoyed a nice conversation with the driver as we made our way back to the lodge. After unpacking everything in our room and taking a little break, we spent some time outside with our very happy baby.

It was nice to have the quite time to enjoy the cool breeze and people watch as prom goers and military officers convened at the same time to attend their respective events (this is in addition to the countless little cheerleaders scurrying about the building).

When we walked over to the Hershey Grill afterward, we were nearly turned away by the hostess. Given the busy weekend there was limited seating and we were about to turn around when the manager escorted the three of us to the patio and sat us at a very nice table near the ducks playing in the water fountain. The meal that we had here was excellent… I suggest the mushroom bruschetta, the smoked trout lettuce wraps, and the eggplant parmigiana (a little different than what we were expecting but good nevertheless). Tired and full we slowly meandered back to the room so that we could put our feet up, and put out baby down, for the night. Thankfully, he slept through the night in the strange room.