Return to Hershey

We had a short drive this morning from Pine Grove to Lebanon, PA, where we were meeting Ken and Bonnie at the Hershey Preserves Thousand Trails to begin our Great American Fall Tour.  Along with touring the northeast and seeing the fall colors, we are very looking forward to meeting each others' families and seeing each others' home area starting with Ken & Bonnie's family and home here in Pennsylavania and then later with our home area in Nashville and our daughters and their families in Atlanta as we head back south.

We pulled in to Hershey Preserves within about 15 minutes of each other and located a couple of nice sites where we are next to each other.

After getting set up, Ken and Bonnie came over and we visited for about an hour getting caught up on all that each other had been doing over the past 9 days.  Then, we got ready and headed over to Ephrata where we were celebrating Ken's birthday at their daughter's house.  With all of our travels together, we almost feel like we know each others' families but it is so great to finally get to meet  Jamie & Dane and their two daughters, Bria and Cali, and Lanie and Bob and their two daughters, Samantha and Katelyn.

We spent a relaxing afternoon of playing yard games and watching the energy of their four granddaughters which reminds Chuck and I of how much energy our 5 granddaughters have.  Where does all that energy go when you get older????

The old guys (Ken and Chuck) took on the younger guys (Dane and Bob) in Can-Jam which is a game where you try to throw a frisbee into a plastic can.

You get 2 points for hitting the can with the frisbee and your partner can help by deflecting it onto the side of the can for 1 point.  If you get it in the top of the can, you get 3 points and 2 if it is deflected.   If you throw the frisbee in the slot in the side of the can, you automatically win the game.  Bonnie and I played the first game against Ken and Chuck and Bonnie automatically won the game with a throw in the side slot. Way to go, Bonnie!

She helped her granddaughters play the game too.

We also played Kubb which we had played for the first time with Ken and Bonnie 3 years ago in Eustis.  Then, the old guys took on the young guys in Kubb and after a few attempts, finally won the last game.

Lanie had provided appetizers for us to snack on that afternoon and Jamie fixed two kinds of chili for dinner -- all of which were delicious!  After dinner and a few more games of Can-Jam, we sang Happy Birthday to Ken and enjoyed some cake!

The girls watched the guys play one more game of Can-Jam before calling it an evening.

What a great afternoon!  As Ken and Bonnie and Chuck and I have said many, many times, we are so very blessed to have such wonderful daughters, son-in-laws, and precious granddaughters!

After we said our good-byes, we stopped by Fred and Dolores' house who lived just a couple of blocks away from Jamie and Dane and visited with them for about an hour.  We had met Fred and Dolores 3 years ago when they were camping with Ken and Bonnie at a campground at Kutztown, PA, that we coincidentally stopped at while traveling up to the northeast.  We're looking forward to camping with them at Sea Pines along the New Jersey coast.  The men are already trash-talking about how their going to win all the games.  Hmmm.  I guess we'll have to see how that plays out.  Talk is cheap.  :)