How to show "&" in string variable

I am trying to build up a url string with multiple parameters.  Parameters are separated by a "&" (ampersand) literal but when I display the string using APPLICATION.alert(myurlstring), the & has been replaced by an empty string.  So "&Parm1=4&Parm2=5" is shown as "Parm1=4Parm2=5".  I have tried chr(38) and &amp but can't figure out how to get the "&" to be displayed.  I thought I could do "/&" but get invalid escape character error.

Any ideas?  Thank you in advance!