Advertisement
Published: April 28th 2013
P1020137
Eating Shoe fly pie in LancasterWe got up and wandered into the kitchen not knowing what Susan concoction we'd be treated to this morning...breakfast burritos (with Turkey sausage). And I must say, it was the best turkey breakfast burrito I've ever had!! That filled us up and ready for our big road trip to Lancaster.
We started on the road and reached a lovely little town called “Bird-in-Hand”. Telling you what, the people around here who were charged with giving all the towns names must've been drunk at the time! We pulled into a little souveniur shop and tried a local delicacy, Shoofly Pie. Bizaare name and a bizaare taste – sort of looked like apple pie, sort of tasted like xmas mince pies and a strong honey flavour aswell.
We hit the road again and found our destination, the Amish Farm House tourist attraction. It was just off the main road and right next to a massive Target! We were hoping it'd be out in rural farmland to make it a bit more authentic but we'd give it a go anyway. We paid a whopping $10 entry and were treated to a guided tour of this Amish Farm House. We were pretty dissapointed
because we ventured all the way to Lancaster to see and talk to some Amish people however this tour was done by an elderly lady who was just infatuated with the Amish (despite not being one). The tour around the farmhouse was very boring, with the Amish-lover lady telling us all about the Amish; how they “just like you and me” and how they're “just so practical”. For those of you who haven't heard of the Amish, they are a religious community who do not believe in using modern technology in their lives. They have taken a tiny verse in the Bible which reads that “man must not be connected” or something and they have taken that to literally to mean that they are not allowed to use electricty, use modern technology like cars or computers or even really social with the general community. We wandered around the farmhouse, and in the kitchen was a bloody fridge! We asked skeptically how the Amish are allowed to use a fridge and our Amish-lover grandma told us that they are allowed to propane tanks and battery-powered devices...hmmm, this is sounding a little suspicious. We ventured to the bedrooms where she showed us
P1020142
The Amish farm and house these old style clothes that every Amish has to wear. Quite old fashion type clothing that has to be hand-sown (or sown using a battery-powered sowing machine) and has to be very bland and not flashy. Combined with a lovely matching prayer-hat. We were getting quite sick of the old Amish-lover and were happy when the tour finished and we ventured on our own outside the farmhouse and saw various farm animals including the biggest pig I think that has ever walked this Earth. It was massive!! About the size of a bloody cow. There was a little woodcarving shop there aswell with some really cool carvings of roosters and things however as one sign told, given its untreated wood we'd never be able to get anything back into Oz/NZ.
We finished our Amish farmhouse tour and went in search these allusive Amish people. We didn't have to venture far off the main road and into the villages. Every now and then we'd have to overtake a horse and cart with Amish people out for a trip into town. Susan advised us that its easy to tell which farmhouses are Amish as they're the ones that don't have any
power-lines connecting the house! And she was right, there were heaps of farmhouses in the middle of paddocks with no bloody electricity and soon enough we saw little kids playing in the back-yard, or a farmer on his plow being pulled by 8 bloody draft horses. It just looked so bizaare as the next farmer along was having a much easier time of it in his big bloody John Deere!!
We stopped off at a restaurant called the Good and Plenty Farmhouse (non-Amish) and had a lovely meal (I had a chicken pie with creamy mash and sweet corn and Rach had an apple and walnut salad with chicken...and it was Good and Plenty!!).
After lunch, we entered a town with the most bizaare name in the world. We stopped off on the outskirts of town and took a photo of the sign. You'll see the photo below however don't really want to repeat what the name of the town was. We made up plenty of jokes in the car about what we'd do in this place, what we'd call our businesses etc. Once we got tired of these jokes, we ventured onward. Whilst we were driving along
we saw a sign indicating “Homemade Rootbeer”. The sign pointed up a farmlane towards an Amish house and we thought, why not. We drove slowly up the drive, not knowing what to expect from these strange people. We stopped the car and looked around, it looked empty. Then we saw some 2 folk wandering between the shed and the farmhouse, wearing old fashion clothing and strange hats. They gave us a quick look and then kept walking with no acknowledgement. We wandered into the little farmhouse shop which contained all sorts of knick-knacks, wooden carvings and preserves. After ringing the bell for assistance, in walked this little girl. Susan said hello and indicated she wanted some rootbeer. The little girl grunted, said “four dollars” and then walked back out again. She was the rudest little 12 year old I've ever seen.
We got back to the car and high-tailed it out of there, the place was starting to give me the creeps. We got back to normal civilisation and wondered around a discount factory outlet shopping centre looking for a replacement dress for Rach. Unfortunately we didn't find any that she liked therefore we will have to keep looking
once we get closer to beach-territory.
That ended our little road trip into Amish territory. We tripped it back home and David and cooked up pasta and meatballs for dinner (Turkey meatballs of course!). It was super yummy and once again told us just how versatile this meat is!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.133s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0833s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
