June 15

A couple years ago, quite by accident, I picked up a book at the library about an Amish family. I enjoyed it and it was part of a series so I read the next one, and the next and the next until I had read every fiction book about Amish at the Spanish Fork Library. I love them. They are such sweet little stories about a people living in modern times but clinging to age old traditions. They had that “little house on the Prairie feeling.” The books I read followed several families in communities such as Bird-in-Hand, the Gap, Zook Corner and Paradise. This morning I drove through all of those towns. I’d thought they were just fictional little communities with fictional stores and restaurants, but here they are right outside my window. Millers, Good and Plenty, the Plain and Fancy. One of my favorite things about reading is that it lets me transport myself to a different place and time, and lets me be part of another world. Today I actually stepped into that world. I am totally in love with Lancaster County. It is beautiful. Amongst the traffic , buildings and businesses there is the quiet world of the Amish. The rolling hills of farms, the cows grazing the horse drawn plows or wagons working in the fields, the solid dresses and black pants hanging on the line makes it feel more like a page out of a book than a real place – yet here I am.

We ate lunch at the Bird in Hand Family Restaurant and Smorgasbord. I was really excited to go and try al the foods I’ve read about. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to eat Dutch Pennsylvania cooking so I was looking forward to trying new things although I was a bit afraid as I read the menu. Hamballs, succotash, chow chow, baked lima beans, sauerkraut and sausages. I had to really choke it down but I tried the sausage, it was almost as gross as it looked, but surprisingly I loved the baked lima beans. The hamballs were interesting – not my favorite but edible. I skipped the salad bar and got tiny servings but I tried EVERYTHING and I don’t think I have ever been so full in my life. The desert bar was my downfall. I just needed to try it all, and there was a lot. I didn’t eat a whole piece of anything, we’d get a piece and all share it but there was Apple pie, cherry pie, raisin pie, oatmeal pie, shoo fly pie, whoopee pie, texas sheet cake, French apple pudding, mocha pudding (Taylor was so enthralled with the fact that he actually tasted coffee) apple crisp, cherry crisp, pretzel salad, and several kinds of cookies, ice cream and slush puppies. I think my favorite was the French apple pudding or the oatmeal pie. The apple butter was also amazing. We were there for almost 3 hours I am sure the waitress was doing a little jig for joy when we finally left. We then went to a famers market and then to the Amish House and Farm. It is 15 acres of farmland, house, barns and a school all nestled in between Target and Cici’s pizza. An Amish family lived at worked on the farm for several generations and now it is a little tourist spot. We had a guided tour of the house where the guide told us all about the Amish, it was absolutely fascinating. I think the children even enjoyed it. And then we wandered around the different out buildings, barns, woodcarvers shop, school etc. They had ponies, donkey, pigs, chicken, turkeys and goats for the kids to pet. We were there for several hours; the kids were having so much fun we just let them wander around until the place was deserted. We then went to the Country Acres Campground where we stayed the night. Kim and her kids got a cabin and we stayed in our Rv. I was beautiful. The had a really nice pool so Rick took the kids swimming for about 45 minutes, until they kicked us out so they could close. We had dinner and tried to roast marshmallows. We burned a lot of paper but we just couldn’t get the wood to catch so we had cold smores . It was a really nice evening. The park was beautiful, there were lots of trees and flowers and rolling hills. It was bordered by cornfields in the back and highway 30 in the front. When I got up the next morning the sun lighting up the cornfields, the sound of the birds and the little bunnies hopping across the meadow took my breath away. It was so peaceful and beautiful it was surreal. It was convenient that it was so close to the highway but there was a bit of traffic noise we could have done without – but not so much that it bothered me. What did bother me was the rv next to us. They were dumping their sewage and I think their hose was leaking. There was a horrific smell and you could see a big wet spot around the seam of their hose. The odor was nauseating.

I really wish I would have had a car so I could have taken a little drive through the back roads but the kids were all asleep in the Rv so I just took a little walk in the park. I would have loved to see more Amish people driving there buggies or working in the fields. I have been so in love with the peaceful tranquility I pictured in the pages of the books I read I wondered if it could really be real. Being there in real life did not disappoint