Rough night.  Went to bed late watching Eagle Eye – not even a very good movie.    And I didn’t finish it.  What made it worse was waiting up at 4am with abdominal pains.  Dropping Mendy in the parking lot and picking it back up the night before pretty much accounts for the back pain.  Stupid mistake, helmet was jammed between the windscreen and the tank bag.  I pulled off without checking the steering lock and tipped it over when I needed to straighten out but couldn’t.

Tummy issues wasn’t from dinner the night before, more likely a legacy of my appendicitis.  Every once in a while, things just don’t work quite right and pain is the result.  When it gets really bad, I start throwing up and then it feels like I’ve been swallowing broken glass bottles.   Not so bad this time, but didn’t get much sleep and pretty much lost my appetite for most of the day.  And I’ll get to look forward to bouts of what feels like digesting glass for the next few days.  Yay.

I made my way over to Hershey’s World of Chocolate.   Neat place, good way to balance out the Park.

I can easily see people coming and spending an entire weekend in Hershey.   Lots of tourists on busses – bunch of asian ones gathered around me as I parked and asked a few questions.   Feeling cheap, I didn’t want to pay for any of the shows or activities – so I just took their tour and wandered around the gift shop.  I think if I was having a better day, I would have done some more.

Giant 5lb chocolate bars!

Short little detour back to Harrisburg as I went the wrong way before ending up in Lancaster.  I pulled over at the Costco to relax and figure out where I wanted to go.  Grabbed a hot dog and drink – managed to eat half of it before I just wanted to sit down and rest my eyes.  Never really managed to decide what to do, but since the Visitor Center was across the street, I hoped I’d be able to figure it out there.

Once inside, I grabbed a guidebook, sat in a rocking chair and promptly started to nod off.  In the condition I was in, riding wasn’t a good idea and I wasn’t about to come up with a better plan.   Fortunately, they had a guided bus tour.  I paid my fees and mostly sat in their mini-bus trying not to fall asleep.   It was still a good intro to the Amish and the county.  I had envisioned all the Amish together, rather than interspersed with the rest of the population.  Not sure I would have so easily picked out which houses were Amish and why.

As with all bus tours, there was the obligatory stop at a store.  I did manage to taste some home made root beer.  Tasty stuff, reminds me that I always wanted to brew my own.  Never got around to asking if they used the original ‘banned’/carcinogenic  sassafras root not…

Another covered bridge as part of the Amish tour.  We got to go through this one.

After the tour, I felt fairly well rested and took the 340, then the 30 East before turning north on the 1.  The one was just as bad as the 1 in Miami – only even less to see.  Lots of lights and traffic.  Stop and go.  I finished off the tank as I passed Trenton NJ and decided to call it a day.   Put together a more solid plan for tomorrow and put some solid miles then.  Hopefully the weather holds.

Checking into the Howard Johnson Express, it seemed a little dirty/cheap, but nothing worse than usual, I thought.  Then after I finished the paperwork, the manager asked me to to bring the bike back up to the front and park it near the office for the night.  So they can keep an eye on it.  Not a big deal, rather nice of them.

I lubed the chain, grabbed a shower and moved the bike back out to the front.  Asked for where to go for dinner and was told that it’s all highway.  No where within walking distance, but I could order in.   Okay, not ideal, but I can live with that.  The first thing they gave me was chinese food menu.  The other options were pizza – and they would take over an hour to deliver.  I settled on the chinese and placed my order.   Then the chinese restaurant wouldn’t take credit card – “Cash only for deliveries to Howard Johnson”.   Winner for sketchiest motel to date.

The food was, predictably, awful.

What came out of the bag – pretty sure the hot sauce was some louisiana hot sauce.

Worst chow fun ever…

I don’t even know what this was… Szechuan Shrimp?

At least I had left overs for the next day!