Amish Country

Last week I spent “quality” time with the family—all 21. Being number 6 out of 7 children it’s quite hard to get everyone together for the holidays especially when in-laws are located in different areas of the country. No Grandparents, Aunts, or Uncles were at our reunion only siblings and their spin-offs. It’s amazing that with 7 children all in one location there was no knock down drag-out fights. Close, but none.

I flew with my parents to PA. This was the first time my mother has been on a plane in 29 years and the first time my father has been on a plane since 911. Get my mother in a town or airport larger than 500 people and she becomes a nervous wreck. I would like to thank the bartender at Ruby Tuesdays for setting me up with the stiffest Morgan Coke drink I’ve ever had after I got off the plane. Much needed and much appreciated.

We spent Sunday in Philly touring the Old Town area which included the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It was very interesting to learn about how a everyday commodity today was a rare commodity back in the 1800’s and how and why it was first developed.

Monday – Friday we spent our time in an Amish community. I’ve been there before, but it’s fascinating to learn about their lifestyles. After a couple of days horse and buggies, Amish cyclists, and scooters on the roads started to get normal. Although town names like: Intercourse, Blue Ball, Bird in Hand, Paradise, Virginville, and Fertility never became normal.

I tried my hand at golf (put-put and Wii) and I learned Golf is NOT my sport. If having the highest score considered you the winner…then heck—I loved the sport!

My brother took us to the “pond” we had no idea what he was talking about until we got there. We pulled up to this Amish Farm got out and grabbed all of the lawn chairs, coolers, etc from the trunks and started walking down this path of cows and cornfields. We rounded the bend and in the middle of farmland there was this AMAZING pond that looked like the beach. The water was filtered and treated—no fish or crawling things in this pond. Sand, tee-key trees, slides, springboards, rope swings…it was so cool! It was so surreal to be surrounded by cows and cornfields ten feet away yet feeling like you’re at the beach.

As noted in my last entry I rode through the country side and went to Hershey Park. We drove back to Philly on Saturday to hit the sites that we didn’t get to see the first time before our late flight home. We tried to get into the US Mint but they were closed. Instead I tossed a penny on Benjamin Franklin’s grave. He had the saying “a penny saved is a penny earned” if you tossed a penny on his grave and it landed on it you had good luck, if you tossed a penny on his grave and it landed heads up—you would have even better luck. I got it on his grave heads up!

We stopped by Gino’s Steaks in South Philly to have their famous Philly Steaks. In my opinion, not something I would die for but it was a tourist attraction and the line was around the building at 3pm.

We didn’t fly into Minneapolis until 1:30 am and didn’t get home until 2:30 am. I had to be in the Stillwater area at 8am for the Town Hall Team Time Trial.