Ocean Wall Mural at the Dauphin Swimming Pool

We're huge fans of street art and wall murals that we spot while traveling around. We try to highlight these works of art as often as possible on the travel blog. The most recent one that we spotted was painted on the side of the wall of the Dauphin Swimming Pool building in Dauphin, Pennsylvania. 

The wall mural takes up the entire side of the building. It was hard to get it all in one photograph due to the cars parked in the parking lot. On top of that, we had just rained making things slippery and wet. I was looking for an artist's signature or company who had painted it, but couldn't find one. I'll have to do a little research to obtain that information. 

Artistically it depicts and underwater ocean them with sea turtles, jellyfish, dolphins, clam shells, coral, seaweed, and a small school of fish in the top left corner. Very colorful, so it looks like it was painted recently, within the past 1-2 years or they take really good care of it! If you look close you can spot the door to the building in the center of the mural underneath the welcome.

To the right of the building you'll find the fenced-in inground swimming pool that is used by the local residents in Dauphin. You have to pay for a yearly membership or pay by the day (according to a local resident who spoke with us). 

Other than this one wall mural, we spotted no other murals or fun street art while driving around the borough of Dauphin in Pennsylvania. With that said, we really enjoyed seeing it.

Family Dining at the Olive Garden in Harrisburg

The Olive Garden Italian Restaurant is a chain-style restaurant that you'll find across the United States. They're known for their casual dining, family atmosphere, and authentic Italian foods. Recently our family visited the one located at 5102 Jonestown Road in Harrisburg. 

If you plan on visiting...we do recommend that you try to visit during off-peak hours. This location gets extremely busy and often times we have to wait 40-60 minutes to be seated if we go during the weekend or weekday evenings when they're busy. This is especially true if there are 5 or more in your dining party.

Their menu offerings are vast offering all kinds of pasta dishes, soups, salads, appetizers, and desserts. They do offer a few items in the kid's section of the menu. Their portions are always generous in size. If you enjoy having alcohol with your meal...they offer alcoholic beverages too. 

As you can see from our photos...we had 12 people in our dining party with 4 of them being children. It took 45 minutes for us to get seated. Once we placed our orders it was another 40-45 minutes until our main meals hit the table. Like I said, if they're busy it will take awhile. If you're looking for quick, in and out dining...choose off-peak hours or a different restaurant. 

Everything that we ordered was delicious. The hot foods were hot and the cold foods were cold. No mistakes were made on our large order at all. Our waitress was attentive and took care of all of our refills and needs in a timely manner. Gotta love great wait service! We showed our appreciation by letting a hefty tip for the great service.

Hassles Mini Golf and Ice Cream Parlour in North Wildwood

Miniature Golf is an activity that our entire family enjoys doing. We get together several times a year to play at home and/or while traveling. Wildwood has a lot of great courses to play at but one of our favorites is Hassles located in North Wildwood, right off of the beach. 

Hassles offers their own on-site ice cream parlour, bike rentals, and an 18-hole mini golf course. They're open seasonally throughout the year. There's a small area to park that's free if you're visiting their establishment. 

The course is beautifully landscaped with fun and interesting layout. It's a fairly easy couse to play with most adults in our party getting a par 2 or par 3 on every hole. It as a tad more challenging for the kids that were with us that day. 

We like to visit during off-peak hours when it's not crowded but yet avoid the middle of the day heat. If you want to avoid crowds go earlier in the day or at dinner time when other families are out to eat. You'll want to wear comfortable walking shoes and you can bring along your own water bottle to stay hydrated. 

According to the rules you get 5 strokes per hole. After 5 you get a penalty on your scoring. They will give you a scorecord when you pay...along with golf clubs and balls. The scoring is located on the scorecord if you're new to the game. There are stationary and moving obstacles to keep the course challenging and fun.

It took our party of 4 about 40 minutes to go through the entire course. We took our leisurely time and had 2 adults and 2 children playing. If it's not crowded and just all adults you could get through the course quicker. 

Once we were done we headed inside to the Hassles Ice Cream Parlour. You'll find ice cream cones, dishes, sundaes, and milkshakes. They have a lot of flavors to choose from. Everything was delicious and frankly...the prices were affordable too! We had a great time while we were there!

Anastasia The New Broadway Musical at the Hershey Theatre

Last week we went to the Hershey Theatre to see Anastasia the New Broadway Musical and had a wonderful time. Every 2-3 months we like to go down to see a show and are never disappointed. Why travel up to NYC when we can drive 15 minutes to Hershey and enjoy an off-Broadway show? It's just as nice! 

Anastasia is presented by NETworks Presentations, book by Terrence McNally, Music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens.

The talented cast includes: Kyla Stone, Sam McLellan, Ben Edquist, Gerri Weagraff, Bryan Seastrom, Madeline Raube, Mikayla Agrella, Addison Kiyomi Au, Lance Timothy Barker, Dakta Hoar, Madeline Kendall, Lizzy Marie Legregin, Colby Marie Lewis, Victoria Madden, Elizabeth Ritacco, Lathan A. Roberts, Alexandrya Salazar, Sarah Statler, Lauren Teyke, and Aidan Ziegler-Hansen. 

First Act lasts for about 1 1/2 hours or just a little shy of that...then a 15-20 minutes intermission, and then the second act which is a little over an hour in length. I like to let everyone know how long a show is, so they can plan for it accordingly in their schedule. 

While you're at the Hershey Theatre you can purchase snacks, beverages and alcoholic drinks (with proper ID), along with souvenirs from the show such as t-shirts, socks, hats, etc. The souvenirs can be pricey and there's not a lot to choose from. We typically just get a beverage while we're there.

The next show that we'll be seeing will be in early October. I'll blog about it after we see it and publish photographs on Instagram. We like documenting the shows that we see on our travel blog for future referance and hopefully we'll get other locals interested in going to the Hershey Theatre to see off-Broadway shows.