30th Wedding Anniversary Trip

Another quiet day on our trip today, our last day in Lancaster County. I have fallen in love with the area and hopefully will be back again one day, maybe in fall.

We had a bit of an earlier morning as we had a 2 hour bus tour that is part of our accomodation. We were the only 2 on the bus so it was great and Berna, a local ex Amish now Mennonite who has lived here her whole life, was an amazing tour guide. She would have been in her early 60’s.

She took us all around the local area showing us many different areas we hadn’t seen yet.

We stopped at an Amish farm that has a quilt shop and oh my the quilts were amazing. We had a great chat to one of the Amish girls from the family who would be late teens early twenties. She was amazed the differences between Australia and America. When we said we were 15 hours behind here to where we live, she said ‘That’s pretty awesome to think while we are sleeping here people in Australia could be partying!’

We bought some little things to take back home and it was back in the bus.

Berna was telling us that the quilts helped in slavery times. When the slaves ran away the Amish helped them and if a quilt was hanging that was a log cabin it meant it was safe but if there was a flying goose on show then it wasn’t safe.

Amish wedding season used to be just every Tuesday and Thursday in November however it got too busy so now their wedding season runs from November to Easter. Weddings are held in their winter because their summers are too busy on the farms. Weddings are always held at the bride’s home with 300 to 400 guests. Their weddings are all self catered and two 3 course meals served.

Amish funerals are held at the deceased’s home. Amish are always embalmed never cremated and there are showings held for 2 days before burial and their funerals are by verbal invite.

The Amish don’t believe in nursing homes except in dire circumstances. The families are expected to look after them until their passing. Portable tiny homes are being introduced so each family member can take care of their parent for certain times during the year and this works well if the elderly have dementia as they stay in their own home.

Church is held every second Sunday however Sundays are for rest and tending to their animals.

All farms are self fertilised using their own cow, horse and chicken manure (and fertilising is starting now and you can smell a slight smell in the air at certain times during the day).

We visited an Amish quilt shop, an Amish popcorn shop with over 50 different flavoured popcorn and a Mennonite ice cream shop where I had a scoop of peanut butter and vanilla plus a scoop of maple and walnut. Dave had a scoop of peppermint choc chip plus a scoop of vanilla and they were absolutely delicious.

She then took us to an area call Valley of No Wires which is a huge area of land where you don’t see any power lines and the Amish live the true Amish life.

Back at the room, we did some washing, had lunch, went and filled the car up with fuel ready to drop off early tomorrow morning before coming back and going for walk to feed the ducks, alpaca and goats.

Tomorrow we have a very early start getting up about 4.30am to leave our room at 5.30am. We need to drop the car off then get an uber to the train station. We have been advised by the lady at the train station last week to be there about an hour before so that will get us to the train station by 6.15am for our 7.15am train to NYC where we change trains to Niskayuna for our week with Cathy and Michael.

Only 4.5kms walked today.

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