{TAKE ME TO} Lancaster County
Happy Thursday! I’m still blissfully re-living our peaceful weekend through photos over here… 🙂
Today I’m sharing Part 2 of our trip to Pennsylvania, where we learned about (and stayed with!) the Amish!!
Missed Part 1 of our Amish trip? Click HERE. In Part 1, you got a mini-tour of the Amish home we stayed in, and then we re-lived the wonderful buggy ride and farm tour with Reuben!
We went on a 90-minute bus tour through the country. Like I mentioned before, I kind of balk at over-commercialized touristy things…but I figured we “might as well” do a bus tour. It ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip!
I leaned way forward in my seat, soaking up everything our English (non-Amish) tour guide told us – like history (that we already knew) but then also stories about her Amish friends. Bjorn, being the most amazing husband ever, whipped out his iPhone and proceeded to show me a voice recording app he had. I had no idea he had this app, but it was such a blessing because he was able to record every second of our tour! This will allow us to listen to the tour all over again someday, when the details become foggy. 🙂
So a lot of these pictures were taken out the window of a moving bus! I was pretty nervous at first that none of them would turn out, but our tour guide would graciously slow down whenever she got to a point of interest. Things like, “And on your left, you’ll see an Amish family working on a new house together…” Anyway, while I’m still working on my “quick-draw” camera skills, I hope these pictures make you feel like you’re riding along on the countryside tour with us!! …plus there’s a smattering of other “daily life” Amish photos! 🙂
^^ If you look closely down the lane, you can see father and son doing chores together ^^
^^ Our driver slowed down to talk about something nearby, and this sweet horse just ran up to the window! She seriously was trying to get some attention!! 🙂 ^^
^^ I think this is called either a “church wagon” or “bench wagon.” Our tour guide said it was a special thing for us to spot. Since the Amish have church every other Sunday in a family’s home, they need to transport all their church benches to wherever the next service is being hosted. I guess this family was busy getting ready for church the next day (a lot to prepare for, since people hang out at their house almost all day and eat meals there too)! ^^
^^ The Amish usually build onto their homes when their kids grow up and get married. The younger generation then lives in the larger part of the house, while “Grandma and Grandpa” live in what is called the Dawdi Haus. ^^
^^ I know this looks like an outhouse, but it’s actually a phone shanty or phone shed. The Old Order Amish can’t have phones in their homes, but they often can have a phone (or share one line with several families) for business use. Phone shanties are usually a ways away from the house. ^^
^^ Watchin’ his dad work ^^
^^ We stopped at a farm with a huge farm stand during our tour. The homemade lemonade was amazing, and so were the homemade soft pretzels!! I got to chat with one young woman, Sylvia, as she rolled out the dough for the pretzels, and her little blue-eyed daughter, with perfectly twisted-back blonde hair, giggled and grinned back at me. ^^
^^ So immaculate!! ^^
^^ I’m actually surprised this woman was riding a bike! We were told that the Amish in the area could only ride scooters. It could be that she’s in a different church district with a different bishop and therefore different rules…or maybe she just decided to bike anyway? ^^
^^ from shopping cart to buggy.. 🙂 ^^
I’ll wrap up our Amish trip with a couple final snapshots:
^^ For lunch on Saturday, Bjorn and I went to a place called “Katie’s Kitchen.” It’s an Amish-owned, Amish-run restaurant and a local favorite!! We were so, so impressed. The waitresses were young Amish women and were very kind and fun to talk to. And oh, the food! Bjorn had a homemade meatloaf meal and I went with the open-faced roast beef sandwich. You can see the amazing buttered noodles in our small bowls. And the star of the show?? The Amish peanut butter spread. Our waitress said it was wonderful but we didn’t realize just HOW good it would be!! The stuff tastes like a sweet, whipped, creamy peanut butter – and on top of those homemade warm rolls, it was to die for. Yes, we bought some to take home. 🙂 ^^
^^ Walking to church on Sunday morning ^^
^^ And a couple other young men rollerblading to church! We passed them a little while after the first two…and these guys sure looked like they were in a hurry! 🙂 ^^
Thanks for “visiting” the Amish with us through these 2 posts! It was truly a remarkable experience, to just step into another world – one that I’d read about and wondered about for forever. It really was amazing. 🙂
Interested in an easy Amish recipe? Click HERE for the best goulash I’ve had yet!
Psst: Like what you see? Enjoy following along with our travel posts, recipes, and other fun little life happinesses? If so, check out the right sidebar for ways to follow Just Bee!