Road Trip

Last night I completed an 8-day road trip to Pennsylvania with my friend Klaus.  Last summer Klaus and son Daniel visited me at Presque Isle.  Klaus was making a sentimental trip to Williamston, near Lansing.  He had been a high school exchange student at Williamston, and this was the Class of 1972's 40th reunion.  However, because learning English was the primary reason for his being in the U.S., Klaus took most of his classes with juniors.  His Class of 1973 friends urged him to return this year for their class' 40th reunion — an invitation he gladly accepted.  Former students came from all over the country to celebrate.  I believe Klaus came from the greatest distance.

Pennsylvania.  It's a long way
from here to there!

Klaus and I decided to travel to eastern Pennsylvania after the reunion.  I wanted to visit Doylestown to see how my grandfather's artifacts are being conserved by the town's historical society.  I also suggested we visit the Amish area near Lancaster and the historic district in Philadelphia, and make a day trip to New York City.  All that, plus the travel, gave us a busy eight days!

Klaus and I traveled 1,395 miles.  If you add the roundtrip mileage between Presque Isle and Williamston, my own mileage totaled 1,911.  The little 2006 Scion did very nicely, although the air conditioning seems to have lost some of its coolant.  I also picked up a cold along the way.  Just about everywhere I turned someone was sneezing, snuffling, coughing, or otherwise sharing their germs.  This is my first cold since I retired in 2010, so I can't complain.

Like a Timex watch, my Scion "takes a licking, but keeps
on ticking."  I finished the trip with 177,225 miles on
the odometer.  (Klaus Jossen Photo) 

We spent our first day on the road, driving 525 miles from Williamston to Lancaster County.  This area, west of Philadelphia, is home to the state's largest concentration of Amish, a Mennonite group.  The Amish take their name from Jakob Ammann who favored a strict form of reformed Christianity.  His insistence on "strict construction" of the faith led to a schism within the Mennonite community in 1693.  In the early 18th century many Amish and Mennonites moved to Pennsylvania, soon settling in Lancaster County.  Many Old Order Amish speak Pennsylvania German (or "Pennsylvania Dutch"), although Swiss German is still spoken in some areas.

Klaus noted that farmers in mountainous Switzerland necessarily work land in the valleys where the topography is often steeply sloped.  He suggested that Lancaster County, with its rich, level farmland, must have seemed like paradise.  Here the Amish settled, and here their children continue to live.  Or at least some of them.  The Amish community in the U.S. now numbers over 250,000 souls, and the community has fanned out into most of the eastern, midwestern, and some southern states.

The Amish Village at Ronks, PA, is a recreation of an Amish farm, including a house, hillside barn, blacksmith shop, store, school, and more.  The Village is both an attraction for tourists and an effort to explain Amish culture and customs.  An Amish teacher is available on some summer days to explain how the Amish educate their children.

Stephen, our guide through the Amish kitchen,
explains how many families use a propane lamp
rather than electrical lights.

Upstairs, Stephen takes us through the typical Amish wardrobe.
Colors reflect nature, e.g., green window shades resonate with
nature.  Women's dresses are held in place by straight pins, not buttons.

Simplicity is the dominant theme in furnishings.
Everything has a purpose, and Amish furniture is not only 
practical, but beautifully made, such as the dresser above. 

Seeing Amish driving their horse-drawn buggies down a busy road, it might seem that these people have turned their backs on the modern world.  Not so!  Rather, Amish life is a careful balancing of old and new.  Some, but not all, modern technologies are kept at arm's length.  For example, families may have telephones, but they are in sheds away from the house.  This minimizes the distractions for which phones are notorious.  I received a half-dozen sales calls today.  Sometimes putting my phone in a shed outside seems like a very sensible idea!

Stephen and Klaus talk in the summer kitchen.  It's here that
the family puts up preserves without overheating the house.

Klaus walks past the covered bridge on the Village grounds.

An Amish kitchen will have a large wood-burning stove.  In winter this is the only source of heat for the entire house.  But many kitchens also have a regular stove adapted for propane.  Some small kitchen appliances, such as a standing mixer, are converted to compressed air powered by a propane-fired compressor outside the house.  The refrigerator is also powered by propane, just like in an RV.

After our tour of the house Klaus and I went on the Village's Back Roads Bus Tour.  Our driver took us on a 90-minute expedition through the countryside around Ronks and Strasburg, teaching us how to distinguish between Amish and non-Amish farms.  One sure sign: the green window shades!  (See the bedroom photo above.)  Our driver also talked extensively (indeed, almost without ceasing!) about the glories of black raspberry ice cream, which he said we would sample at our last stop on the tour.

At our first stop the Amish boys head out to the barn...

...while the family's mother and daughter introduce their
visitors to the family's new litter of puppies.

We stopped at one farm where the family's golden retriever had recently given birth to a large litter of puppies.  As an antidepressant, six or seven puppies are far more effective than the most sophisticated medicines!  This family also sold homemade (non-carbonated) root beer.  At the end of our tour we stopped at another farm where I sampled the root beer — excellent! — and bought some of their home canned jams.  Unfortunately, they were sold out of black raspberry ice cream!  I'll try to make my own if I can find some black raspberries.

I bought an Amish cookbook at the Village.  Here I am, looking
for recipes for black raspberry ice cream.  (Klaus Jossen Photo)

Klaus and I agreed that this back roads tour could have been shorter, or the guide could have had a more extensive patter.  Nevertheless, it was good to learn a little about the Amish, because a couple Amish families have recently moved into Presque Isle County.  A few of the folks at Posen, where these newcomers have purchased farms, are not pleased by such unusual additions to their predominantly Polish Catholic community. •••