Jelly Belly Warehouse - Tour and President Reagan Stuff

We found ourselves near the Jelly Belly Warehouse up in Pleasant Prairie Wisconsin recently and decided to take the two youngest kids on a tour and stop at the factory store.  The tour is free and is a nice way to spend an hour.   They put you on a little tram ride that takes you around the facility and shows you how they make the beans.  But...this isn't a factory.  It is a warehouse.  And we went on a Sunday when the place was shut down.  Still was fun, though.  They also have an in-house bean artist that does displays like the one you see above with Mickey and Minnie Mouse made entirely out of Jelly Belly jelly beans. 

Here's the non-operational warehouse:

One aspect of the tour is the wait for the tram to arrive.  There's only one tram and if it is out on a tour, you have to wait for it to come back into the station for the next tour.  They have you wait - not in the warehouse - but in a separate spot.  The waiting room is actually upstairs where they have a window to view the warehouse floor and a few tubes full of scents/smells that they pump into their beans. 

But they also have two big walls dedicated to their special relationship with former President Ronald Reagan.  There are photos and letters on the wall that show off the mutual relationship that they enjoyed. 



Kinda neat stuff to see President Reagan call the White House his 'temporary address'.

Here's President Reagan with Bob Dole.  On the table is a big jar of jelly beans (of course), but also a yes/no/maybe/scram device that he called the "executive decision maker" (thanks to Getty for their photo and description of the device!) 

What a guy.  Sure seemed like he had a lot of fun and quite a bit of personality.

Hard to believe that we've gotten where we are with the current occupant of the White House in just 30 years.  But we're here, aren't we? 

Speaking of the 'executive decision maker', seems like a nice project to maybe try to take on once my workshop takes shape?  I saw this letter maker/carver jig or template over on Rockler that uses the 'State Park' font.  Seems like a few cuts and some bevels/relief on parts along with dowels inserted into the sides of the box and through the braces, capped with some sort of cap.