We woke to cloudy skies but at least dry. York, PA is one of
two locations where Harley Davidson Motorcycles are manufactured. You are
allowed to take tours of their plant and that was the first thing on the
agenda. It was less than a mile from our hotel, so we packed up and went on. After
a subway breakfast we went to the plant.
York manufactures the touring, soft tail, and CVO models.
Our motorcycle is a touring bike, so this is the place where it was made. The
tour lasts about an hour and is guided. You aren’t allowed to take photos. They
walk you through almost the entire plant (which is enormous), starting with the
area where they form the metal pieces like the fender and gas tanks. Then you
walk to where huge robots weld the frame together. Next we saw the first area
where frames are taken to paint. The paint process is a very important part of
making the bike. Obviously it must be completely sterile and dust free so the
tours don’t go near there. HD has a list of products that paint employees are
and are not allowed to wear, like deodorants and lotions, because certain ones
contain chemicals that would react with the paint. Each paint job is assessed
down to something like 1/10,000th accuracy-any flaw larger than that
has to be corrected. After paint we went by the assembly line. Each worker has
90 seconds to complete his or her task, and the employees rotate jobs on the
line regularly to keep them ‘fresh.’ They have these automatic robotic carts
that transport things around the factory. They work by magnetic strips in the
floor and halt if they come within something like 2 feet of an obstruction.
We did take Mini-B on the tour too.
This has really been a Harley year…we saw the HD museum in
Milwaukee in June, went to Sturgis on our first leg, and now saw where our bike
was made!
After the tour we went south to go to Gettysburg. They have
a really nice visitor’s center that has a museum in it, but we didn’t go
through the museum.Can you find Mini-B in the sign?
We did see ole Abe (can you find Mini-B?):
The area offers a drive-through tour, with marked points of
interest that takes you through the battle sites chronologically from the beginning
to end of the battle. What was most
interesting was all the markers. Several years after the war, battalions,
divisions, etc. started erecting large monuments and markers to commemorate
those lost in battle and mark their locations in battle. There is something over
1,300 monuments that are all over the landscape. The last stop was at the cemetery
where many of the unknown or un-buried (at the time of the war) were laid to
rest.
On our way out of Gettysburg we stopped at the Harley dealer
and a leather shop to look for replacement gear for what was stolen but with no
success. In the HD factory they had a small booth as a visitors center for the
county. Devin had found a card for factory tours and outlet store of the Utz
potato chip factory. After looking for leather we took the 10 mile detour to go
to the Utz plant. Tours were already done for the day but we spent more than 30
minutes and about $20 on chips at the outlet store. By the way, their dirty
style Funky Fusion chips are to die for, although Devin preferred their Crab
Seasoning & Jalapeno flavors best.
We hit the road once more and drove…and drove…and drove. We
had Taco Bell for dinner where we had the nicest cashier. We listened to the
presidential debate on NPR while we drove. We eventually stopped in Wytheville,
VA for the night. We caught up on some of our TV shows we had missed while
being on the road by watching them online before going to sleep.
You guessed it…but we’ve gone a lot.
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