Lori, Ian, Cullen and I took a day trip to Lancaster PA while I was visiting with them. We had a wonderful trip to Amish country. I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but I had a few surprises.
We left Maryland in the morning with Cole (Lori's dog) a little upset with us for leaving him yet again to his own devices. Cole is a black lab and truly a lover, not a fighter. He knows exactly the looks he needs to give to his family - just the proper amount of "sad-eye"- to get what he wants. It took all of 15 minutes to for him to get Auntie Deb figured out. Yeah...it's true. I'm a sucker for "sad-eye". anyway, I digress. We made our way to Pennsylvania. Then we drove to Intercourse. Yes. Intercourse, Pennsylvania. Don't ask me why its named that. I don't want to speculate.
We drove around the back roads and looked at the wonderful farms in the area. It appeared to me that the Amish must believe that order and cleanliness are next to godliness, because each place had that well put together look. Well kept and clearly the result of hard work. The yards were especially beautiful and full of color. On the clotheslines next to the drab clothes, hung beautiful and colorful quilts.
We stopped at one farm that had a hand-painted sign "home-made root beer for sale". We asked the lady in the yard if we could buy some and she agreed. She looked to be about my age, but without a bit of make-up or vanity with her hair and clothing. I felt almost clown-like in comparison wearing my eyeshadow and colorful clothes. We also asked if it would be ok for us to take a picture of the barn with its rows and rows of hanging, drying tobacco. She said it would be fine, but not to take any pictures of the family. All during the exchange a young man had been standing by the door of the barn watching us. As soon as we pulled out our cameras he disappeared, as did his grandmother. She reappeared when we put our cameras away. We said goodbye and thank you and left. As we continued our drive around the countryside we saw horses pulling farm implements through the fields, sometime large teams of horses. I got a kick out of the traditional Amish horse carts that the people use to travel on errands. They actually share the road with the cars and the carts have turn signals! They follow all the rules of the road that cars do. The speed limit isn't a big issue for them though. The horses are beautiful and clearly well trained. They have a little trot that they do - kind of a high stepping trot - that results in the clop clop clop clop sound.
We stopped at a shopping area that sold all sorts of things and was probably 99.9% tourists - but it was fun and we got some awesome ice cream ("made from the milk of our own cows..."). Then we stopped at a family farm "store" that an enterprising Amish family had set up. The wares were mostly hand-made items or dried flowers, but some of them appeared to be garage sale items. The two little daughters of the family were manning the store, since mom was out in the field helping dad with the harvest. The little girls appeared to be about 4 and 9 years old. I couldn't help myself from winking at the 4-year-old and was rewarded with a new BFF. They were both adorable and tried very hard to serve our every need.
It was a full day and we were tired. As we traveled back to Maryland we decided to stop at a Cracker Barrel for dinner. We knew we had passed one on our ways TO Pennsylvania so we watched for the signs. I think Lori was getting hungry at this point because she kept saying "there it is!" when we would come across a similarly colored sign. Finally we were rewarded with the correct sign and pulled off . It was on the other side of the freeway and down a winding road, but we found it. I won't mention how Lori made the turn on two wheels when it looked like we might miss it. The boys and I were very happy when we parked. (I have to harass Lori a little...it's my job.) We had a hardy meal and some fun shopping, then headed back to the freeway. Cole was very glad to see us when we returned home.
I'm having some trouble posting pictures so I'll do that separately.
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