I have wanted to visit the Amish in Pennsylvania since I first saw Witness with Harrison Ford forever ago, and it was just as cool as I thought it would be. We spent the day in the little towns of Bird-In-Hand, Ronks, Strasburg and Intercourse (insert giggles 😂 On a side note, I still have the card Daddy mailed me in 2007 from Intercourse, PA to Climax, NC – I can hear him laughing when I called him about it 🤣🤣🤣).

Back to today’s adventure, we started the day on the Strasburg Railroad riding a steam engine around the Amish countryside.

For $5 extra each, we could ride in the Presidential Car – and since Mike doesn’t care much for the public, it was $20 well spent 🤪

Our attendant was great and recommended some places to eat and visit. She also answered unlimited questions from you know who…

The boys made themselves at home (seriously they took off their shoes for the ride) and loved checking out every part of the car… especially the tiny bathroom (ugh boys 🙄)

And they managed to work in some wrestling 🤼‍♀️

We hopped off the train to explore the station and pick up a few mementos

And then off we went to find the Good and Plenty Restaurant for some of this famous Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking we’ve been hearing about…

Okay, now we had heard all about the Amish food and their style of eating – family style at long tables with strangers. We don’t miss meals so despite our reservations about eating with strangers (remember Mike doesn’t like the public), we gave it a try. WOW!!! They weren’t kidding about Amish cooking – just WOW! We had fried chicken, roast beef with gravy, and Amish sausage (it wasn’t Two Boys Pork, but it was good 😉) plus homemade mashed potatoes, corn, peas, and homemade bread! Seriously, I had a big ‘ol food baby by the time we were done!

But wait! What about dessert? Homemade cherry pie, Shoo Pie, and homemade ice cream 🍨. We also tried an Amish dish called cracker pudding made from saltines. It wasn’t bad. Think snow cream flavor with different consistency. I don’t think I’ll ever find myself wanting a big bowl of cracker pudding, but we gave it a try 😀

We shared our meal with 2 ladies from Argentina and their tour guide from New York. He was originally from Ecuador but came to US and became a citizen 13 years ago – he knew EVERYTHING about the United States, and not in a know-it-all kind of way. He knew it all in a I’m-so-proud-to-be-a-citizen kind of way. His job was to take people on tours around the Northeast US. He was really an interesting guy. One of the ladies he was with today was a Judge in Argentina, so we had a great time talking about differences and similarities of US and Argentinian courts. When we got back in the car, we got tickled about how cool it was that we just had an Amish Family lunch with an Ecuadorian immigrant and an Argentinian Judge in Bird-In-Hand Pennsylvania?!?!? As Don King would say “Only in America!”🇺🇸

With our bellies full (and I mean FULL) we set off to find an Amish tour. We decided to stick with the recommendation of our train attendant, and went with the Amish Experience. My only regret was that we didn’t have more time to do more. We had to choose 2 things due to time, and we picked the movie and buggy ride 🐎 but seriously, aren’t these the cutest Amish ever?

It took a while to get the buggy ride going…

These Amish really need some bossy southern women to organize their stuff… but when we finally got going, it was great! Our driver (who i think was named Brittany but Mike says was named Laurie) was fun. Her boyfriend was Amish who decided not to live Amish after runshpringa (see below 😉). She has lived among Amish her whole life and really knew her stuff. The Amish believe community over self and find the positive in everything. To distribute weight, Leo rode in the front with Brittany-Laura, and was fascinated by the different color the velvet turned when you rubbed it (good thing we spent $10 for that ticket 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Then we headed to the theater to see the movie “Jacob’s Choice” – a 30 minute movie about the choice that all Amish adolescents face at 16, called runshpringa. The theater was really cool and the movie taught us all a lot – boys thought the special effects (water spray when they talked about ocean, cannon fire when talked of war, etc) were awesome.

We didn’t know that being Amish was a choice. But apparently during your runshpringa, you get a time to go “not be Amish.” You can drive cars and go experience life. Then when you’re ready (there’s no time limit on how long your runshpringa can last) you can then become a member of the church or not. If you choose not to be a member, you can continue to have relationships with your Amish family and community . If you choose to be become a member, then you will marry Amish and live as an Amish person. The whole shunning thing happens when you leave the Amish Faith after you become a member. We had no idea this was even a thing! But it’s a big deal for Amish teenagers. They said about 90% eventually choose to be Amish. The whole day was a really cool experience for all of us.

Finally, we left Amish Country and headed to the sweetest place on Earth 🍪🍫🍪 Hershey, PA!! This place is so fun! The Hershey Lodge is like a Walt Disney hotel except it doesn’t cost a kidney to vacation there, and instead of mouse ears everywhere, there are Hershey Kisses! On the windows, the wallpaper, the soap, even the sheets !

But the best part of tonight for boys was the indoor water park!

Think of it as a mini-great wolf lodge. The boys thoroughly enjoyed every part – especially the basketball court in the water!

We shut it down, showered and got in the bed.

And as I am typing this, there are some loud snores coming from the other bed… and Praise the Lord! We have 2 beds tonight 🎉

Off to bed for us – a full day of chocolate is ahead tomorrow! ♥️🍫