Really?? A Jell-o Museum?? Buffalo to Bethlehem

Things are winding down…or maybe winding up!  After a rousing Rise & Shine at Towne MINI in Buffalo (they said it was the most attended R & S yet), we took off to Bethlehem, PA.  

First stop, the Jell-o Museum in Le Roy, New York!  It was less than an hour out of Buffalo, but mostly through small towns, and people were lining up on the streets or standing on their front porches waiting for us!  It was awesome!  Kinda like we were in a parade, which I guess we were!  Sometimes I wish I could be a bystander just to see the endless line of MINIs coming down the road!  Everyone waved and smiled and whistled and just had an old fashioned good time!

And then there was the Jell-o Museum!  The people of Le Roy are proud of their history!  They were out in full force to welcome us, handing out shopping bags with Jell-o souvenirs, including a huge box of Lime Jell-o!  When we first entered the Museum, they had a ballot table set up to vote for your favorite flavor!  Great, I thought!  We get to do some Jell-o taste testing!  They had flavors I never even heard of, like Island Pineapple and Sour Apple!  But no, they just displayed the boxes and wanted you to pick one and write down your zip code so they could track who liked what where.  I jokingly complained that we didn’t have Island Pineapple in New Mexico, what if it was my favorite?  How would I know if I never got to try it?  “What have you been drinking?” was the admonishing response I got!  Lol!  Interesting side note…they were asking if anyone in our group was from North Dakota.  Evidently, no one from North Dakota has ever visited the Museum, and they were convinced that ND residents were not allowed to leave the state!

 When we left the Museum, we were given a detour from our route sheet to bypass some construction.  Because of that, we ended up lost for a while.  But the good news is, we were lost with a bunch of other MINIs!  Finally, one pulled ahead that seemed to know where they were going, and we followed them to our next point of interest, the world’s largest pancake griddle!

We stopped for a photo, and then headed out…looking for a place to eat lunch.  We found Petersen’s Pizzeria nearby, and had a couple of NY style slices.  It was delicious!!  Once our bellies were full, we just put the hotel address in the GPS and drove off.  Well, that took us straight into Watkins Glen, where NASCAR was having a race weekend!  Talk about a traffic jam!!  The entire road was set up with vendors and food trucks and people everywhere!  We finally detoured through a residential area and were able to bypass most of the crowds. 

We got to the hotel at a reasonable time, but when I checked in at the front desk, they couldn’t find my reservation.  I gave them the confirmation number, and the clerk said, “Oh…!  You already checked in!”  Ummm…no, I didn’t…!  So after about 30 minutes of sorting out the confusion (it just so happened that there was also a “Janet Rosenthal” checking in, and she was given my room by mistake), we got into our room with barely enough time to freshen up a bit and get to the evening event.  That was another fiasco!  Lol!  It was held in conjunction with Musikfest, a 10 day festival held at the Steel Stacks in Bethlehem and this was the closing weekend.  So by the time we got to the area where the MINIs were supposed to be, it was full and we were diverted to “overflow” parking, which was more than a mile away!!  We complained and whined for several minutes about what to do, along with several other MINI drivers.  Eventually a bus came to pick us up and deliver us to the Registration area.  We were given $25 in food/drink vouchers, and Cindi and I walked around looking for something halfway tasty, but all we really saw was your typical “Fair” style food.  We decided to turn our vouchers back in and eat at a nearby Ruby Tuesday’s.  By the time we got the bus ride back to the car and drove to the restaurant,  it had closed!!  Now we were both whining, hungry, and exhausted!!  We actually ended up at Burger King and went back to the hotel and crashed within 10 minutes!  I have to admit, the trip is starting to take its toll…but I’m still having a blast!!