Lancaster County Back Roads

We spent yesterday exploring the back roads of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and what a wonderful time we had!

This is the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country, and on every back road we traveled we saw Amish farms, usually with laundry hanging on clotheslines, and livestock in their pens. 

This swaybacked horse looks like he’s seen better days, and is living out his golden years in retirement.

We always love wandering around the back roads, because we never know what we’ll find around the next bend in the road.

The Amish are enterprising people, and besides farming, they operate a lot of little cottage industries. We saw signs for fresh produce and flowers, eggs, root beer, handmade quilts, brooms, and furniture.

We saw a lot of horse drawn Amish buggies sharing the road with cars and trucks. The horses amaze me, because they don’t seem to be bothered at all by cars speeding past them.

The Amish also work their fields with horse powered equipment. Isn’t this a handsome team of work animals?

I didn’t know that the Amish grew tobacco as a cash crop until yesterday.

It’s harvest time, and we pulled off the side of the road to watch them cutting and stacking the tobacco on wagons.

Just a couple of fields away, this fellow was harvesting corn.

We passed several groups of Amish schoolchildren on their way home after a long day of lessons. Almost all of them seemed to be carrying coolers instead of lunch buckets like we did as kids.

This boy seemed to be in a hurry, running past all of his schoolmates. He must have had chores that needed doing.

I got a chuckle out of some of the names of the towns we visited, including Blue Ball.

If that names makes you uncomfortable, you probably don’t want to know that Intercourse is only few miles away. How do you spell relief?

For years people have been telling us that we needed to check out the Shady Maple Smorgasbord near Blue Ball, and I’m glad we did!

Can you believe that this is the lobby of a buffet restaurant, and not a fancy hotel lobby?

And what a buffet it was! The selection was huge, including both New York Strip and Delmonico steaks, smoked pork chops, fried chicken, shrimp, and at least a half dozen other entrees, and more sides than I could count. Everything was fresh and hot, and the dessert bar was unbelievable.

But if that wasn’t enough, they also had a chocolate fountain where we could dip fresh strawberries, bananas, pretzels, and other goodies. Can you say decadent?

We arrived back at the Thousand Trails campground tired, with our tummies full, and with memories we’ll have for a lifetime of our day of exploring.

Thought For The Day – The silence is part of the music.

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