During our Hershey trip we did a few short side trips to some nearby destinations. The most memorable of these was our lunch at the Magic & Wonder Theater, located just outside Lancaster in Paradise, Pennsylvania (see above photo). It’s a dinner theater (though we were there for lunch) where the show is a magic show; but it’s one that can best be described as a Broadway-style show with a storyline of sorts, singing and dancing, a cast of ten, a smidgen of audience participation, and some truly arresting, astonishing and exciting feats of prestidigitation. I sat very close and, try as I might, in almost every case I couldn’t figure out how the magic was accomplished. Which is as it should be.
We also visited a couple of outlet malls while in the Lancaster area, and went to one of those enormous roadside country shops where we enjoyed looking at a huge array of garden sculptures and eventually wound up buying a really attractive plant for our patio.
We sojourned briefly to Harrisburg one afternoon as well, which is much closer to Hershey than I had realized. The find there was a bookstore called 2nd & Charles–part of a chain that is slowly working its way north from its headquarters in Alabama–which is a massive and well-stocked shop with excellent prices. We left with ten books for about forty dollars. Unfortunately, when we exited the store it was pouring–so further Harrisburg plans got derailed and we headed back to Hershey.
Because we don’t like to drive for long distances as a rule, we made our journey to and from Hershey with overnight stops. On the way, we spent an evening and night at King of Prussia, a spot we’ve been to before: we mostly spent time at the mall, which our Lyft driver told us was the “third best” mall in the country and which, I had read previously, is in fact the largest. Too large, for my money, and too much geared toward opulence–for there aren’t many stores in our price range located within it. We did see an excellent film there, though: Power Ballad, with Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, which we highly recommend!
For the trip back we stopped in Willow Grove, where we’d been earlier this year when we saw Modi (the wonderful comedian) at the nearby Keswick Theater. The highlight of this stay was a second visit to Stutz, a candy store even more enticing than the one at Hershey Park. Their homemade chocolates and confections are a real favorite of ours, and complemented the Hershey haul quite nicely.
