Ben and Jerry's Factory Tour

Sometimes I act just like a kid: I get so excited for something that when it finally happens, I am a little bit disappointed. That happened on Friday. Seeing as I love to see how things are made and I love ice cream, I had hyped up the Ben and Jerry's tour so much in my head and when we finally went on it, it just wasn't as wonderful as I expected.

The tour was quick, crowded and pretty standard. It started off with a quick film about the history and the 3-part-mission (which I really admired) of Ben and Jerry's and then our lively tour guide took us through the plant for the eight step process of making the ice cream (each step was labeled in the factory room as we looked down from the catwalk and she talked us through it). Our tour ended with a small scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream.

I do have to say, as a collector of ice cream paraphernalia, I did enjoy the gift shop! (I can either look at it as being unfortunate for my collection or lucky for my wallet that the shop is currently unavailable online!)

Afterwards we visited the flavor graveyard up on the hill, which was kind of fun and it inspired me to create my own flavor graveyard beginning with brother-in-law Liam's Lime Spoom. [Appropriately, at our next stop to the Rock of Ages (a great tour, I might add), I was able to pick up some flat granite scraps to use for this purpose!]

I couldn't take pictures for you on the actual tour, but I did manage to get a couple on the grounds and some photos-allowed sites.

Bethany and Kevin as Ben and Jerry

Bethany coming out of a carton of ice cream?
(It's really just an ice cream carton podium
in the sample room.)

I did have fun with my parents, husband, sister and brother-in-law, so spending time with them was well worth it...! Wished my little sister was there too, but alas, she was enjoying her own ice cream down in Virginia, and hopefully she'll be guesting with a field report soon! (Thanks, Arianna!)