Okay, the diet can restart next week.

Actually, I only ate little bits – more of the pink grapefruit sorbetto than anything else. Mmmmm.

So yes, we did a very quick tour at Hershey’s – it was free, and would entertain a four-year old more than Gettysburg, okay? Lots and lots of teens pouring out of busses. Chaos and noise and lots of merchandise, but can you really fault an attraction built by a company that makes stuff for having too much merchandise? I think not. We’re not talking high art here.

Milton Hershey, whom I hadn’t spent much time thinking about before this point in my life, was a fine man, a model of an American entrepeneur/business magnate, who put his wealth to good use. To show my hopelessly parochial colors here, of course we note the religion angle: raised a Mennonite, he married a Catholic woman, in a ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC – it doesn’t seem he ever became RC, did he?

So then back in the car, continuing east to our hotel, which is no where near where the CMN show is, but is of our favored brand, so here we are. Michael, unfortunately, is feeling rather poorly, so in the early evening, the children and I headed over to West Chester, where we wandered the lovely old downtown – unfortunately none of the businesses were open, which I found odd. I guess I expected it to be more like Napierville or Wheaton IL, but that’s okay – it’s its own colonial, Early Republic self. Very nice-looking restaurants of course – the food people were eating as I walked by – especially the antipasti at a couple of Italian places – looked lovely, but that was not exactly where the four of us needed to be, even outdoors. Instead, we found an excellent pizza-by-the-slice place and parked on formica tables (well, on the chairs) and enjoyed.

Then, still wandering, we went to this place, where Katie marveled over gelato and I had the aforementioned pink grapefruit sorbetto, which I thought was fantastic. I’m strange that way. But then, I used to have a grapefruit tree in my backyard from which I’d rip two fruit when I finished running Lake Hollingsworth, and sit on my porch and enjoy…don’t get me started.

So, tomorrow to the CMN, then, depending on when OSV has me doing a booth appearance, I hope I can take everyone to Valley Forge – Michael says it’s right across the road from the convention center, so that should be possible.

You know- there’s a lot to do in Pennsylvania. I was sort of depressed looking through the tour books, studying all the little interesting places I’ll probably never see…