Robot Claw

This morning we visited Indian Echo Caverns, a cave very close to Hershey Park. I’ve been to a few caves in my time, but this one was one of the best.

The cave was known (and likely used by) Indians before it was ‘discovered’ about 200 years ago. In 1929 the cave became privately owned and opened to the public for tours, and has remained mostly unchanged since then.

It has two passages meeting at a right angle in an enormous room they call the ballroom, which is over 50 feet high and about 200 feet wide. You could easily build a rollercoaster in this room (which didn’t photograph well due to the darkness) and it was easily the biggest cave room I’ve ever been in.

Although the cave is now wired with electric lights and gravel paths have been added, it still has many striking formations and pools inside and while smaller than other caves I have visited was well worth the trip. It’s also one of almost ten caves in Pennsylvania that can be visited, which almost suggests it’s own road trip doesn’t it?

As an aside this cave has entered local folk history due to being the home of a hermit for almost twenty years back in the early 1800s. His story is fascinating: read about him here (and yes we visited the ‘room’ he lived in).

Oh and they have animals near the cave shop for people to admire while waiting for their guided tour. This turkey was about the biggest I have ever seen!

After the cave we drove to our next destination which took us right through Amish country. We passed many gift shops and places selling Amish handicrafts, and yes we saw some Amish buggies riding along as well. But we didn’t stop, since the coast beckoned. I’ll save the details of where we are now for tomorrow 🙂

Back to the park today, and we started with the water rides!

There are quite a lot of them, and we rode several water slides, a lazy river, and an insane log flume with a massive drop that created a gigantic plume of water when it reached the bottom.

Since we hit the water rides first the waits weren’t lengthy, and we were able to ride everything we wanted in about 3 hours. If you had kids with you this part of the park could easily fill an entire day, since there’s loads of kiddie friendly rides for them to play around in.

Probably due to the reduced heat and lack of rain, the park was much busier today, and by the time we had dried off and had some lunch some of the attractions had lines as long as two hours. We wandered around a bit squashing pennies for Bernard’s collection before it was time to tackle a few of the rides we hadn’t managed yesterday.

We both rode the Ferris wheel and a historically significant single-loop coaster (the first of its kind on the east coast!). Kristin was a bit anxious in line for each, but had fun on both 🙂

Even though the line was longish, I then decided to wait for the newest coaster in the park, Candymonium. It was about a half hour wait, and I chose to wait a few more minutes for a front seat. The ride was incredible: super smooth with astonishing amounts of air time. Despite being enormously high and fast (>120 km/hr) there was only a lap bar (albeit a robust one) and on every hill you felt yourself lifting up from your seat for a second or two. For a ride with no inversions it was surprisingly exhilarating and so much fun to ride I would have gone right back on if there wasn’t a line. For me, this was the best coaster in the park.

Afterwards we did one more quick ride on the bonkers log flume we rode yesterday before calling it a day (it was nearly 6 o’clock). Another 7 hour park day, and over the two days 9 of 14 roller coasters rode (this would have been higher but two were closed today). We deem our Hershey Park visit a big success!

We’re in Pennsylvania! Specifically the city of Hershey, named after Milton Hershey who was the guy who created the chocolate company. If you like Hershey chocolate (and I don’t!) then you should visit this place since it’s the epicenter of their empire 🙂

We’re here for Hershey Park, the amusement park. It’s big and loud and famous for its many rollercoasters, and we came here specifically to visit and ride them.

But first we had to ride the Hershey’s Chocolate Tour in ‘Hershey’s Chocolate World’, which is a gigantic shop/attraction right next to the main park. This tour consists of riding self-propelled carriages through a dramatization of one of their chocolate factories and is narrated by some of their super-creepy characters. With more than a hint of Disney, this ‘ride’ was fairly well done for a free attraction and I think would dazzle a child.

We lined up at the entrance gates before opening, and as soon as they opened we legged it to Fahrenheit, the coaster shown above. I picked this one first since it usually has the longest lines (2.5 hours yesterday!) and I was able to hop right on with no wait. It’s an intense ride with an initial vertical climb, a 97 degree drop and many inversions and once or twice I was pretty sure the car had derailed. One of the more thrilling coasters I’ve ever ridden, this was a great first ride and I highly recommend it!

Next was Great Bear, another monster coaster with many inversions and a high amount of disorientation. It’s an ominous ride that makes a distinctive roaring noise due to the wheel/track design and it includes many moments when your (hanging) feet feel only centimeters away from obstacles. But – perhaps due to the fact I didn’t have my glasses on or because I was hot and thirsty – when I got off I was very dizzy and light-headed, so it was time for lunch and a break!

The park is big and mazelike, and while it has a great app with an interactive map, it’s a real challenge getting around. There’s loads of rides (I think about 45?) including the coasters, and all the usual other attractions common in theme parks such as games, characters, food galore and even an attached mini zoo!

Oh and I couldn’t resist posing with a bunch of characters. They’re all hideous creatures of nightmare, but were I to pick a favourite it would be this Twizzler even though the red ones are abominations. But I suppose they wouldn’t make a black Twizzler mascot since everyone knows black Twizzlers are laxatives 😉

After lunch I rode Wildcat, which is a wooden coaster that closes permanently in less than a week. There was essentially no line and it seemed almost abandoned, and after I rode it I knew why: this was a seriously uncomfortable ride! It’s apparently infamous as one of the worlds roughest, and my body was thrown left and right like a boneless puppet as the car whipped around the track. It was painful, and put me off wooden coasters for the rest of the day! Only ride this if you have a deathwish!

While Kristin went on none of the three I’ve described (she waited patiently with my glasses since they don’t let yet you wear them on intense rides), we both rode many other rides, including two other coasters (the Wild Mouse was terrifying!), a crazy log flume and a few others. We also visited the zoo, which was underwhelming since half the animals are off-exhibit due to an avian flu and the others were hiding due to the extreme heat.

And when I say extreme heat, I mean the life-draining kind. There was a short rainstorm mid morning, but by noon the heat had returned with a vengeance, by mid afternoon it had become unpleasant, and by late afternoon we were both near exhaustion! It was time to leave so we could laze in the hotel room like blobs.

But there was still 4 or 5 other rollercoasters to try out, as well as some other rides and attractions. And there’s even an attached water park with its own series of water slides and other rides! We’d been going 8 hours but hadn’t seen everything…

It’s a good thing therefore we got two-day tickets so we can return to ride the rest tomorrow 🙂