Our Amish Adventure

First thing I would like to say, is it's REALLY hard to navigate in Amish Country!!! We used Google Maps before we left home, but they were very hard to follow. There are tons of small country roads and for some of them the signs were really small and easy to miss. At one point we even had to stop and ask directions. We were really wishing that we had GPS while we were there. Unfortunately, because we got lost a couple times, we didn't get to do as much as we had planned, but we still really thoroughly enjoyed the day.

The first 2 places that we stopped were not Amish, but Swiss. We had decided to eat at the Chalet in the Valley restaurant for lunch. We knew that Little One would not eat Swiss food, but we figured they would probably have a kid's menu and we were right. However, we did not expect the little guy to poo poo his grilled cheese sandwich. *sigh* For some reason it tasted a little different and he did not like it. The strange thing is, he did eat off of my plate which was fine with me, because I had more than enough and wasn't able to eat it all. I had ordered a cheese plate that came with a few different cheeses, meat, crackers and apples. Little One really liked the Swiss Cheese and happily ate it with the crackers and of course he ate most of my apples. lol!!! My husband ordered something Swiss which I can't remember the name of, but he liked it.

The place was really cutely decorated with scenes from Switzerland, the Alps and lots of Cuckoo Clocks.

After we left the restaurant, we went to a cheese factory that was also Swiss. Unfortunately, we were not there at a time when they were making the cheese, but it did have a cute store to browse through. We bought some Swiss cheese from there since Little One liked it so much.

After we left the cheese factory, we crossed the street and met an Amish father and his children. They were selling bird houses and baskets and we bought a really nice basket from them. After that we headed for a farm. The farm was not quite what we expected, it was very commercialized, but enjoyable none the less. Here they had a market where they sold fudge (bought some!), jellies (bought some!), popcorn (bought some!), pies (wanted to buy some!), and other baked goods.

We then head for the petting farm area where Little One got to feed the goats, pet a horse, see sheep, a pig, baby bunnies and chickens. He also got to go on a pony ride. At first he wanted to ride the largest pony there, but after getting on it, he changed his mind and went with the tiniest pony in the group. lol!! We wanted to go on a buggy ride, but it was really expensive. It would have cost $15.00 for all of us to ride, so we decided to skip it.

After we left the farm, we headed to another farm that was more like a zoo. This place in the brochure advertised a drive through exotic animal area (you could drive yourself or have them take you in a wagon), a petting area and an Amish house you could tour. When we first got there we decided to drive through the animal area. We were already too late for the last wagon ride and we had already decided that may be too scary for Little One since the animals come right up to you. So we are going through this place with our windows down and putting along at only a few miles per hour. There were all kinds of animals in there, deer, emu, big horns, buffalo, llamas, reindeer, giraffes and some we don't know what they were. The only animals that were pinned were the giraffes, the rest were free to roam. They would walk up to our car and cross our path whenever they felt like it.

The llamas especially, liked walking right up. Our first experience with that was, we were putting along with our windows downs and we slowed down so I could take pictures and this llama starts heading for me. As he got closer, I got kinda nervous (I didn't want the thing to stick his head in our van!) and started trying to get the window. At this point he was getting REALLY close. My window wouldn't go up!!! My husband didn't realize that he had locked out the controls. lol!!! So I started hollering for him to put up the windows and by this time that llama was almost at our car. Just before it was able to stick his head in, we got the window up!!! lol!!!! It was a funny experience, but after that, Little One wanted his window up!

Well, we continued to putt along this wildlife area and we get to the end (we can see the gate) and this huge, horned animal decides to stand in the middle of the road. We crept up a little and honked our horn, he just looked at us and then turned his head to ignore us. So we crept a little more and honked our horn and he just looked at us again and then turned his head to ignored us again. lol! So then we back up around the bend a little and were discussing what to do. Driving backwards through the area would be impossible. It was 2 1/2 miles of winding trail with steep drop offs. We sat for a total of about 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do. Finally the beast moved so we were able to drive on ahead and out of the wildlife area.

After we finally got to exit the wildlife area, we had been told that we could explore a model Amish home that they had set up. Well, we were in for a big surprise!!! The first thing we noticed when we walked in was the refrigerator, stove with oven and sink! Hmmmmmm.... I thought Amish didn't use electricity! Well, as it turns out they don't use electricity, but they do use natural gas, kerosene, propane and can even hook up a battery to things. lol!!! Definitely not what I was expecting!!! I was envisioning some type of modern day Little House on the Prairie, when in fact, the house was nicer than ours is.

It was unusual in a few ways. First they had two houses connected by a porch. The one house was the main house, the second house was the grandparent's home. The part that we found the most unusual was both of these houses had 3 kitchens each. Two in the basement and one on the main level. The explanation was that they have the kitchens in the basement to use in the summer where it is cooler, but they never did explain why there were two of them.

On the second story, they had lots of bedrooms. I did notice they did not have closets, so they hung their clothes on like a coat tree and on wall pegs. The upstairs also had bathrooms that had a sink, toilet and shower. Again, not what I was expecting.

The woodwork through out the house was gorgeous. I would have loved to have it in my home. The cabinets in both the kitchens and the bathrooms were modern and beautiful. The houses were sparingly decorated, but we are not sure if that is because that is the Amish way or if it is because the house was a model.

We were later told by a waitress that even though the Amish do not have telephones in their house, they many times will have a phone booth in their yard for them to use. She also told us that she has seen Amish people at the local Walmart buying computers and computer equipment. I guess they probably need them for their business or something.

While in Amish country, one needs to drive very carefully. Cars share the roads with Amish buggies and the buggies don't go very fast. Most of the time they were going along at about 5 miles per hour, but could sometimes get up to about 10 miles per hour, but needless to say, they didn't go very fast. We noticed they do not have to follow child restraint laws and that the mother's held their babies while in the buggy. At night, though, the buggies did have headlights on! It looked kinda strange, because it was obviously not a car coming toward you in the dark, but it was too wide to be a motorcycle. So while there, drive very carefully so as not to hit a buggy while going around curves or over hills.

Click on the pictures below to see them.