Severe flooding at Hershey Park and Knoebel's

http://behindthethrills.com/2011/09/tropical-storm-lee-floods-knoebels-and-hershey-park/

When you step foot in Knoebel's Park in eastern PA, you truly feel transported back in time.  It's in my top 10, and possibly top five.  Okay - it's in my top three parks for my Road Trip.  And Hershey Park is warm and welcoming; their zoo is a small-but-mighty historic treasure.

Just read that both parks got walloped by tropical Storm Lee and suffered extensive flooding.  Worse yet, Hershey Park's Zooamerica lost two of their beautiful bison.  Please say prayers for the folks who are working hard to clean up and put things back to rights.  So very, very sad.

Looking back, taking stock, giving thanks...

It's been quite a year. I've had the honor to visit a number of parks across the country and get the word out about my book on a Pittsburgh area radio station. There's so much more ahead, but at this dark quiet Advent time, I think a look back at what I've seen would be quite fitting.

Silver Springs in Florida, "Nature's Amusement Park". While strolling through the area, I kept getting met with images of folks back in the 1950s who enjoyed the park in a different way than today's crowd. The place was exotic and rather dangerous back in the day. Imagine a typical 50s family, mom in crisp cotton and kids and dad decked out in their madras, dad with Kodak camera, kids with the Brownies, snapping pictures of creatures they'd never seen before. A safari of sorts only a few hours away from their space age, tri-level homes.

Hershey Park in PA. A chocoriffic wonderland -- the closest thing we'll probably ever have to Wonkaland.

Dorney Park, with a vintage carousel Ben remembered from his childhood back in Ohio. It had been transplanted at Dorney years ago. Ben's realization that it was indeed his childhood carousel was one of my most treasured moments thus far in my Cotton Candying.

Knoebel's. May just be my most favorite park to date. It almost taunts other parks in my mind, daring them to top it. They're remaking the Riverview Flying Turns ride, for cryeye!

Hoffman's Playland - small but sweet. The perfect park for a family treat (pardon the rhyming, but it just seemed right. You'd rhyme too if you visited Hoffman's).

Seabreeze Park -- the story behind its carousel is quite inspiring. Getting to venture INSIDE said carousel was magical.

Darien Lake in upstate New York has a wonder wheel-style Ferris wheel and an ancient plaster octopus in the lake. It's got a lot of "new" to it, but when I found these vintage touches, it made the park spring to life for me.

Arnold's Park -- A park that's had many a setback, but has always come back improved and saucy. Plus they have a rock and roll museum on the premises. I mean, come ON.

At this point in the year, it seemed that karma or the spirits that be or what have you told me that I needed to slow down or take stock or not be so cocky because they sent an actual flood which smacked us down about five grand. And so the Cotton Candying stood still for several months until...

Children's Fairyland! A fantastical storybook-themed park that holds true to its history. The puppet theatre alone is worth the journey.

Santa Cruz Boardwalk: a haunted mansion with some rocking FX, fried Twinkies and chocolate-covered bacon. These are a few of my favorite things. Oh -- and sea spray.

Silver Dollar City - where you can have a country Christmas with all the trimmings. And succotash. Can't forget the succotash.

Gotta thank God and all my angels and my Mom who sits on my shoulder from time to time for the drive and energy to continue the RoadTrip. And my most heartfelt thanks always goes to my sweetheart, my personal angel and playpal - my husband Ben, without whom none of this would be a reality. None. Not a stitch.

I must also thank all the people who generously contributed to my Kickstarter campaign, to help offset some of the travel expenses for next year's Cotton Candying. You are my spankin' new angels and I gratefully acknowledge you all!

It's been a tough year, especially with the aforementioned flood, but also career-wise (extreme highs and the quietest of lows) and Dad's health, which has made my focus stray a bit to say the least. But looking back and taking stock of my journeys I must say I accomplished all I set out to do, with a few exceptions. And what awaited me in the months after of the flood, when I really had no more funds for RoadTripping? One of my most favorite roles and shows to date: Drowsy in "The Drowsy Chaperone".

So it's Advent. And I'm amassing lists of all I've surveyed, embracing and keeping that which is good, and letting go of what has proven hurtful. Anticipation and wonder and love = good. Fear = bad and hurtful.

I suggest you give it a try, too. And a very blessed Advent season to you.

Humid enough for ya?

Seriously, the weather here today in the greater Chicagoland area is thicker than glue and just as sticky. If I wanted to live in Florida, by gum, I would've moved to Florida. But no, instead I choose to live in an area where I can breathe in air rather than a flood of water. Actual water. I walked outside to my car this morning and I do believe I swallowed a lungful of water.

When we visited Hershey Park last month, it happened to be on a day where the humidity and the temperature were both easily in the 90s. I was afraid the costumed Kiss and Chocolate Bar characters would melt into puddles on the asphalt (never did see the Reese's guy -- and now I'm frankly worried).

Yours truly had to speed slurp her luscious hot fudge sundae, topped with life affirming and life sustaining Hershey's sauce. I'm a slow ice cream eater (all of us Turlows are), so the concept of "ice cream headache" is lost on me.

Luckily it was too darned hot for the headache to take effect.

Sunday on the Blog with Photos: New Leg of Road Trip, 2010 Edition!

I've always, always, always wanted a 50s-style swimsuit, a two-piecer with a bra top that actually DOES something, with a bottom that covers your tummy. Comfy, sexy, sporty: the 50s-style suit, the kind Marilyn Monroe wore.

As close as I've come so far: me posing against the vintagey photo of gals wearing such suits. Hershey Park, the waterpark, May 31, 2010.

So little to say, so much time... strike that. Reverse it...

Cotton Candying in earnest. Yesterday was all the chocolatey goodness one could eat, smell, see, even listen to, over at Hershey Park. A lovely place just teeming with rides of all sorts, a monorail (which Ben felt was better than Disney's because it took in a lot more of the park, rather than just one "land"), and the chocolate. On ice cream, featured in a dark ride (which you go through in a "Doom Buggy"-style vehicle while learning how Hershey's chocolate is made), and walking through the park for photo-ops. You'll see that Ben and I ran into little Hershey Kiss. She was delightfully sweet and we made fast friends.

Then today: Dorney Park which, depending upon who you talk to, is the oldest park, the second oldest park, or just one of a number of great vintage parks which opened in the 1890s. Today was HIGH SCHOOL FIELD TRIP DAY! The amount of unruly hormones wafting through the park made me swagger! A waterpark is attached to the amusement park, which makes for scads of scantily-clad teen girls romping from ride to ride, with throngs of teen boys literally falling over themselves to keep in close proximity.

So much more to tell... guess you'll just have to stay tuned!

Embarking upon Sweet (really) 16!

Tomorrow, Memorial Day. Another day, another park. We've traveled through four states in one day which might be some sort of record for me. Of course, you travel above more in an airplane, but to let the countryside roll right past your window, past pastures, over rivers, and through the Appalachians - about halfway through, I began t realize that this was one of those once in a lifetime travels. Because Ben and I may travel through this way again - but it'll never be our first time through these particular four states ever again.

When we checked in at our motel, the desk clerk gave us our Priority Club gift: a bottle of water (which I have at my bedside) and a Hershey bar with almonds.

There's something about the sweet creaminess and the crunchy saltiness that makes the length of the day seem shorter and helps me to settle down.

I'm starting my Hersheying early. Because tomorrow, we'll be in a world of pure imagination...

Sweet dreams.

"Monorail, monorail!"

I love monorails. No, I mean, truly, madly, deeply love them. My first memories of visiting Disneyland when I was seven involve riding the monorail, looping past "It's a Small World", then around and down, down, down through Tomorrowland, safely arriving at the station for a magic-filled day.

The seven-year-old in me, the one that never intends on growing taller and more cynical, is tremendously geeked about visiting Hersheypark in just over a week and taking in the park while riding their monorail. Like Disneyland's, it has an audio tour which helps to acclimate you to the park.

I'm gonna ask if I can ride up front!

A world of pure (chocolatey) imagination...

Okay, click on this link (or copy/paste it):

http://www.chocolatespa.com/spa_treatments/everything_chocolate.php

Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of chocoalteyriffic goodness!

Hershey Park is set as one of the stops on my next bit of Cotton Candying and sure to be the one place where the chocolate will trump the spun sugary goodness. The park has Hershey-centric characters, as pictured above. And the smooth, rich Hershey chocolate runs rampant throughout the park in all the goodies you can possibly consume, including this:

Chocolate Desserts! Choose from our many tempting chocolate desserts featuring Hershey's Products! Tudor Grill - A warm and gooey triple chocolate Hershey's fudge cake Explosion, and, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake.

And then we come back to the link.

When in Rome, you do the Roman stuff (gladiator races? pasta tosses? dancing in fountains in your underwear?), but when in Hershey, you have the option of a chocolate massage, a chocolate facial. A chocolate bath. Yes. The Roman baths were for pikers. I can sink into a tub of milky chocolate if I so desire.

If you want to view paradise...

The gears and cogs and wheels are schpinnin'! Roadtripping to resume!

And another tributary of the Roadtrip springs forth! At the end of May, skipping into the beginning of June, Ben and I will fearlessly leap into the eastern half of Pennsylvania, swoop into New York state, and I'll have six more parks under my belt (at least!) when all is said and written and done.

Almost in stone, the park list reads: Hershey Park (where Willy Wonka would party: Hershey kiss-shaped justabouteverything), Knoebel's (I've been told may have the best park food eh-vuh!), Dorney Park (I'm still learning more about it, but I know it's super old AND has a Camp Snoopy -- beagles galore!).

After whiling away in PA, we'll traipse up through the Catskills and on the way, stay at Kate's Lazy Meadow (if you haven't been paying attention -- it's owned by freakin' Kate Pierson of the B-52s, for cryeye, and it's resplendent in Mid-Century kitsch AND finery! Truly, a place after my own heart.). After bidding Kate "adieu", we'll hop up to Hoffman's Playland (a smaller kiddie park, reminiscent of Kiddieland in some ways), then start to edge on back west, but not before visiting the grandeur of Seabreeze Park and Darien Lake (heavenhelpme) in the same day!

So, where do you want me to buy you a snow globe? Cuz I'll do it.