Amish Country!

We went for a drive yesterday to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania - otherwise known as Amish Country. Oh, and by the way, it's pronounced LANK-ister. I've always thought it was Lan-CAST-er but apparently I was wrong. It was about a 200 mile trip each way from our house. We used Nick's new GPS receiver to help direct us which relieved me from map-reading duties so I was able to sit back and enjoy the scenery. Lancaster County in general is very bucolic and seemed to give us a sense that we had been transported back in time. Life just seems slower and more simple from the urban lives we're so used to. The Old Order Amish culture is very fascinating and so very different from our mainstream lives. Horse drawn carriages carrying Amish families are a common site and at one point we were the only car on the road behind 3 carriages. They do not drive cars, use electricity, watch television, or have telephones. They believe the use of these modern technologies would intrude into their home lives. Farming is a way of life for the Amish and preger to use farm equipment drawn by horses or mules. The women wear very plain dresses with white aprons and white bonnets. Their clothes are fastened with hook and eye clasps since buttons are considered decorative. They speak an English dialect called "Pennsylvania Dutch" which is English with a strong German influence. It was a very interesting and beautiful drive, meandering the roads of Lancaster County. It is one thing to just read about their culture and lives but for me to see it first-hand was quite a different experience.





In the meantime, Andrew & Lauren were in the backseat making these faces:




Along the way we stopped at the National Toy Train Museum in Strasburg, PA. Holy Cow....Andrew could have stayed all day. There were thousands of model trains all along the walls and huge working model trains that we could operate by pushing a button. He was so thrilled to be in such a wonderland of trains. We may need to upgrade his train collection from Thomas Trains to the real Lionel Model Trains someday. Next door to the museum is the Red Caboose Motel & Restaurant which is a line of 19 cabooses which have each been renovated and turned into motel rooms. Andrew loved seeing the "life-size" cabooses and even climbed up the stairs of one to have his picure taken.









We then headed for Gettysburg which was about an hour away. Along the route we hit some pretty heavy traffic. Many semi trucks were suddenly surrounding us on the highway. We noticed people with lawnchairs were camped out along the side of the road, all watching the trucks (and us) drive by. There was a lot of honking and waving and fanfare, etc. We really weren't sure how we suddenly ended up in the middle of a huge semi-truck convoy parade but that is exactly what happened. We eventually saw an advertisement for "The Make-A-Wish Truck Convoy" AKA "The World's Longest Truck Convoy". Yay. Not the traffic we were hoping for. That's when the GPS came in handy and we hit the "Reroute" option. The detour took us along some side streets of the town of Lancaster and we saw some interesting buildings/houses along the way.






We ended up at the Gettysburg National Military Park and strolled through the museum which was filled with antiques and relics from the Civil War. Overall it was a nice day and a beautiful drive. There is so much more to see that I'd love to go back sometime, maybe stay in the train motel for Andrew's sake!





Andrew & Lauren update:

Andrew finally started his speech & developmental therapy a couple weeks ago. He has speech for an hour on Mondays and developmental therapy for an hour on Wednesday. He absolutely loves it because the therapists brings fun books and activities for him so it's more like playing rather than anything. They were both quite surprised that he was qualified for the early intervention program since his speech has greatly improved since the evaluation we had a few months ago. He is quite a social little guy and is always excited to have them over and is always very chatty with them...even if we're not always sure of what he's saying.

Lauren's horrible teething a few weeks ago ended up also being an ear infection. She had her routine doctor visit and she's in the 95th percentile for height and weight. She's a big girl!