Abe’s Buggy Ride
3 de marzo, Estados Unidos ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C
Last night we heard buggy’s going up and down the road most of the night with the most traffic between 2 and 3 am. We were wondering what was going on so good old google told us that Sunday nights are the teenage Amish children social nights. They must have been having fun as there as a lot of horse and buggy traffic between 2 and 3 this morning.
We got ready and walked to Abe’s Buggy Rides. We went into this holiday with the motto of taking every experience that came to us and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ride in an Amish buggy, we may never get the chance again.
Our driver was Paul. He is a Mennonite who are very similiar to Amish except they embrace a more modern lifestyle including cars and electricity.
He took us for a 4.5 mile ride around Amish country, showed us 2 schools, many many Amish farms, a sycamore tree that was over 120 years old and a stone house that dates back to before 1870.
He was very knowledgeable and answered all our questions. He did confirm that Sunday nights are Amish teenage social nights so google was correct. He also told us that the average size of an Amish farm is between 50 and 60 acres and you can tell the size of the farm by the number of silos on the farm. Farms are kept in the family and each farm has at least 2 barns/houses on the farm with the smaller barn being the parents and the larger barn/house is the child who is now running the farm: Mondays are washing days and there was lots of washing on everyone’s lines. Amish children only go to school until year 8 which is when they turn 15 and after that they either work a farm, learn a trade or find a job normally within an Amish business.
Though many may not understand or agree with the Amish way of life, we have absolutely enjoyed learning about their way of life and immersing ourselves in their county. The most wonderful morning spent.
We headed back to our room for some lunch and a bit of a rest before getting in the car and heading to Strasburg a little township near Bird-In-Hand that caught our eye yesterday.
Once we found a place to park which is difficult in these towns as roads like our New England Highway pass right through the centre of town and the houses are right on the road.
We wandered up and down the Main Street taking in all the beautiful heritage listed properties getting so many ideas for my ideal house. We knew that all the shops were closed on Sundays so we decided to go today however what we didn’t know was that all the shops also closed Mondays so we just looked and not shopped.
Before heading back to our room, we made a quick visit to Walmart to get a hot chook for dinner. Back at our room we went for a walk to the pond and fed the ducks, goats, fish and alpaca and sat by the pond while I typed this blog entry.
Another amazing day on our adventure.
Walked 7kms today (with the lower kms walked you can tell we have a car again).Leer más