PopCult Pennsylvania Vacation Slides: part One

As has become tradition over the last fourteen years, anytime your PopCulteer goes anywhere cool, he takes lots of photos and maybe even shoots video to share with his reader.  Last week I went on a ridiculously fun trip with my wife to celebrate our fifth anniversary, and along the way we visted many cool places.

Over the next couple of days I plan to bring you some cool photo essays of places like The Boyer Candy Company Factory Outlet Store in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Hershey’s Chocolate World, The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show, The Lindt Factory Outlet Store and some of the other cool places we stopped along our meandering drive through the wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania.

We experienced a wealth of chocolate, toys, and other fun things whilst enjoying a no-pressure drive through the land of towns with funny names and outlet malls.

In addtion to the photo essays, we also have a video of the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show in the works, probably for Sunday.

To get you started, here are a few random images from the trip, just to give you a sample of what you can expect in PopCult in the next several days. Our lead image is at the Boyer factory. You can expect that to be the next photo essay, later today. Here’s a few more teaser images with their descriptions below each photo (where the captions would be if we ever figured out how to do captions with the new WordPress interface)…

Part of the central PA drive. It wasn’t too hot, nor too sunny, both of which kept my Myasthenia Gravis from becoming a major issue.

You’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s PopCulteer to see the huge photo essay from the Toy Show. sorry. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

You’ll get to see what it was like in Hershey’s Chocolate World after we go to the Boyer Candy Factory, probably later today.

The Fulton Steamboat Inn, in Lancaster, Pa, near Intercourse.

A random photo taken out of the car window to capture the brightness of the colors of what might otherwise have just been a dismal farm or factory shot.

A covered bridge near the Amish Farm in Lancaster. To fully experience the Amish experience we had just eaten at Cici’s Pizza.  It’s not as good as it was when we used to have them around here.

On the way home (in Maryland now) we saw this Mini Cooper with a sticker that cracked me up.

Here it is blown up so you can see it even better.

One of these days we’re going to have to get off the interstate in Cumberland and take photos of all the cool architecture. Hopefully someday when the city doesn’t smell like burnt motor oil and farts.

And we leave you with a sloppy composite photo showing off the full majesty of one side of the Fulton Steamboat Inn. We just stumbled onto this after visiting The Shops At Rockvale, which is a unique beast of an outlet mall in decline. In retrospect, it was positively thriving and vital compared to the Premium Outlet Mall in Hagerstown, Maryland, which was nearly a ghost mall with about 40% of the storefronts vacant. When we went there we only saw about ten other shoppers.

Up next will be photos of our trip to the Boyer Candy Company Factory Outlet Store in Altoona, PA.