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Gettysburg National Military Park

2025-12-02 by Martin

We visited the Gettysburg National Military Park in late October 2025 while staying at the nearby Thousand Trails Hershey RV Park in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

We decided to follow the auto audio tour which includes sixteen stops that provide a comprehensive overview of the three-day battle at Gettysburg during the American Civil War. We started our visit at the Museum and Visitor Center which gave a lot of information on the background to the battle as well as the battle itself and the aftermath. The battle took place between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle, won by the Union, is widely considered the Civil War’s turning point, leading to an ultimate victory of the Union and the preservation of the nation. The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of both the Civil War and of any battle in American military history, claiming over 50,000 combined casualties.

The auto tour took us around many of the key locations around the battlefield, with informational displays at each stop that generally followed the chronological order of key battle elements. Some of the most noticeable features as we drove around the battlefield were the 1,320 monuments and markers that came in various shapes and sizes and have been constructed in some cases in fairly recent times.

As part of the auto tour we drove through the small town of Gettysburg as we visited the various battle sites that surrounded the town. The auto tour ended as the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. On November 19, President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg to take part in the dedication ceremonies for the new Cemetery. His brief speech, the Gettysburg Address still lives across place and time, and gave meaning to the sacrifices of the men who had struggled here, and stated his belief that the war would lead to a “new birth of freedom” for the nation.

Our visit to Gettysburg was very interesting and we gained a greater understanding of the history of the American Civil War in general as well as the specific Battle of Gettysburg.

Hershey Gardens

2025-11-22 by Martin

We visited Hershey Gardens in late October 2025 while staying at the nearby Thousand Trails Hershey RV Park in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Hershey Gardens opened in 1937 with chocolatier and philanthropist Milton Hershey’s request to “create a nice garden of roses.” 88 years later, the small rose garden has blossomed into 23 acres of botanical variety and beauty. Overlooking the town of Hershey, Hershey Gardens features a breathtaking assortment of flowers and shrubs, a stately collection of rare, signature trees, and a signature butterfly atrium.

We started our visit at the Butterfly Atrium with its hundreds of butterflies from around the world in a tropical setting that features colorful plants and water features. Only one of 25 indoor, tropical butterfly atriums in the country, Hershey Gardens’ Butterfly Atrium is home to dozens of rare butterflies from South and Central America, Africa and Asia. Various exotic plants thrive in the warm tropical environment including a Cacao tree and various Plumeria among others.

The spectacular rose garden is the historical highlight of Hershey Gardens, this is where it all began in 1937. The brilliant assortment of 3,000 roses representing 115 varieties includes an interesting mix of heights, colors and flower forms of Hybrid Tea, floribunda, shrub, and miniature roses. Many of the roses were still in bloom when we visited in early fall. We really enjoyed wandering among the roses and sampling their fragrances.

There are 11 themed gardens that we wandered through as we followed the meandering paths, there were some interesting finds as we wandered through the gardens including a lone Sequoia tree. We enjoyed the spectacular colors of the chrysanthemums in the seasonal garden.

Indian Echo Canverns

2025-11-19 by Martin

We visited Indian Echo Caverns in late October 2025 while staying at the nearby Thousand Trails Hershey RV Park in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

We really enjoyed the 45-minute tour which was led by our knowledgeable and entertaining guide Ave Maria. The cave was on the small side compared to some of the more famous caves, but it contained several different rooms and passageways and a large amount of cave decorations including stalactites, stalagmites, columns, flowstone, cave popcorn, soda straws, and even some “cave bacon”. The formations are all calcium carbonate so they’re white except where people have touched them and turned them brown or where green algae had grown due to the cave being lit. There were several small pools in the cave which were nicely lit. Outside, they also had a petting zoo with goats, an alpaca, turkey, a white peahen, and several chickens.

The caverns’ earliest known inhabitants – the Susquehannock Indians – used the caverns for shelter and storage. In the 17th century, early European explorers and hunters most likely discovered the mouth of the caverns while navigating the Swatara Creek and wrote home about their use of the caverns.

Our guide shared a couple of interesting stories of the cave’s history. For nineteen years (1802–1821) the caverns were the home of William Wilson, who was also known as the “Pennsylvania Hermit.” Wilson withdrew from society after his failure to halt the execution of his sister Elizabeth for the murder of her twin sons. Following her death in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1786, William wandered westward across southeastern Pennsylvania, settling in the caverns in 1802. The Sweets of Solitude: Instructions to Mankind How They May Be Happy in a Miserable World, an essay reportedly written by Wilson during his time in the caverns, was published following his death. We bought a copy of this small book from the visitor store, and it made for some interesting reading after our visit.

A second story dates from 1919, when a group of teenagers made a cool discovery – a small wooden chest known today as the Mystery Box. Inside they found several stones, jewelry, foreign coins and more. The oldest piece in the box was a Moroccan coin dated 1288. To this day, no one knows who owned the box, but you can peek at its contents on display in the gift shop.

We have visited quite a few caves over the last couple of years including the famous Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. While Indian Echo Caverns is much smaller, it contains a good sampling of the cave decorations and features that are seen in the larger caves, all of which can be experienced during the entertaining 45-minute guided tour.

Cornwall Iron Furnace

2025-11-15 by Martin

We visited the Cornwall Iron Furnace in mid-October 2025 while staying at the nearby Thousand Trails Hershey RV Park in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Cornwall Iron Furnace is the only surviving intact charcoal cold-blast furnace in the Western Hemisphere, a testament to the once great iron industry that flourished in South-Central Pennsylvania. Originally built in 1742 by Peter Grubb who named the furnace Cornwall – after his father’s birthplace in England, the furnace underwent extensive renovations in 1856-57 under its subsequent owners, the Coleman family, and closed in 1883. It is this mid-19th century ironmaking complex which survives today. At Cornwall, furnace, blast equipment, and related buildings still stand as they did over a century ago. Here there are rambling Gothic Revival buildings where cannons, stoves, and pig iron were cast, and where men labored day and night to satisfy the furnace’s appetite for charcoal, limestone, and iron ore.

The origins of the furnace complex originate from the discovery and development of nearby iron-ore mines when Peter Grubb, as a 19 year old immigrant who in 1737 came prospecting and discovered three hills of magnetic iron ore, purchased a total of 442.5 acres of land for $675.00, and established what was to become one of the world-renowned and most productive iron ore mining operations of all time. Following continuous operations for 236 years, during which time 110 million tons of iron ore were produced, the famous Cornwall Iron Ore Mines closed in 1973.

We started our visit at the visitors center building where our tour guide showed us an introductory video on the history and operation of the furnace, estates, and nearby ore mines, before taking us to the nearby building that housed the furnace operations. The entire furnace building and the furnace itself are incredibly intact. The tour guide did a great job of explaining all of the components and areas of the furnace building. Starting at the top level of the furnace where the charge was loaded, we went down a level where we saw the huge wooden wheel, 24-feet in diameter and weighing 4 tons, that powered a wooden axle and blowing tubs, which functioned as bellows to supply the blasts of air for the furnace’s operation. The wheel was originally powered by a water wheel but later converted to steam engine operation. We saw the restored steam engine in a room next to the wheel as we continued the tour down to the lower level where the molten iron was removed from the furnace and formed into “pig-iron” ingots. .Also, at this level we could see the pipes and nozzles that injected the blasts of air created by the bellows into the furnace

After completing the tour of the furnace building, we browsed the displays in the visitor center museum, where we saw one of the 42 cannons and some of the cannon balls that were cast here for the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War. From the visitor center and museum, we walked around the nearby well-maintained buildings that originally formed part of the estate. There were a variety of trade and farm buildings as well as offices and residences. We also saw the grand mansion house that was built by Peter Grubb’s sons in 1773 with 19 rooms and later remodeled into its current 29-room configuration in 1865 after the furnace operations and estate were taken over by the Coleman family.