Jelly Belly Tour

Well, today we took our long awaited tour of the Jelly Belly factory. Its pretty interesting to see how many stages and how much time goes into making these sugary delights. I thought the entrance area of the place was a little Willy Wonka-ish.

Did you know that the lettering that says Jelly Belly on each bean is made of marshmallow? And they use huge vats to toss the jellies as they add alternating layers of sugar/flavor concentrate? There is a lot of trivia to share here, but I won't spoil it for you all. Take your own tour. There are free jelly bellies in it for you.

They had tons of these pictures made out of Jelly Bellies. Here's Arnold. There were a number of pictures of Ronald Reagan. The Jelly Belly people credit Reagan for their fame, since he was a huge JB fan, and apparently took them everywhere.


While you're on tour, you have to wear these paper hats. There was one teen in our group with a huge fro, and the tour guide kept hassling him to put on his hat, please! He tried to balance it on top, but come on. If only I'd found a way to covertly snap his picture!

And will you look at what sunny California had to send us today? A hailstorm! There was still some ice on the ground a few hours later. Amara took the chance to make hail/applejuice slushies. (Very creative, Auntie Anna!)