Sabbatical Overview

This travel blog was started after my sister Julie's first sabbatical. There was a lot to write about Australia and New Zealand that if I had tried to cover it on the main blog it would have taken me away from blogging about anything else for quite a while.

It took a while to hit my stride with this blog, just like it did with the other two. Now I enjoy the function it fills, where I have a regular day to write about places I have been and think critically about them.And it has now been long enough for us to his Julie's second sabbatical.

This trip was not as long or exotic as the first one, but we visited several new places that we had been wanting to see for a while. This is what I will be writing about for the next several weeks.

We left on September 5th, 2015. Our first flight sequence took us from Portland to San Francisco to Philadelphia. Once in Philadelphia, we used a car service to take us to Langhorne, where we stayed at the Courtyard Philadelphia Langhorne.

The next day was spent at Sesame Place.

Monday we headed back to Philadelphia via taxi, settling in at the Residence Inn Philadelphia Center City. This was right near City Hall, so that and Kennedy Plaza were the first places we explored. We had gotten the Philadelphia City Pass, which included a city tour through the Big Bus company. In addition to touring through the city you can get on and off at various stops, and we had two days to do this, which helped us see many different sites.

We caught an early morning Greyhound on the 10th to Easton Pennsylvania, home of the Crayola Experience. The bus terminal is very near the factory tour, so we explored Crayola before even checking into our hotel, taking a taxi to the Holiday Inn Express.

Reversing that, the next day we had a taxi take us back to the bus terminal, catching a Greyhound to Harrisburg, from which we took a taxi to Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Simmons Motel. After leaving our bags we walked over to Hershey World, which you could just as easily call Chocolate Heaven. We stayed overnight, the next day visiting Hershey Park and the adjacent ZooAmerica. Pouring rain and a love of chocolate sent us back to Hershey World.

We had a taxi take us back to Harrisburg, this time for the airport. We were flying to Minneapolis via Chicago. A taxi from the airport took us to the SpringHill Suites Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport/Mall of America, which has a shuttle to the Mall itself.

Our first day there we just looked around at different stores and features, but the next day we did several attractions as well, exploring the Aquarium, playing a round of mini-golf, and surviving the Amazing Mirror Maze.

 

Tuesday, September 15th, we checked out and took a hotel shuttle back to the airport. This time our layover was in Phoenix. We arrived back in Portland around 7:30 PM.

If you think that sounds exciting so far, just wait for the details!