Our destination today was Amish country in Pennsylvania, specifically a place called Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn, which Martha's Mom and Dad had visited many times and had become a place we wanted to see, too. So we reluctantly left the quiet of the Parkway for I-81 (although it, too, is a beautiful drive), up the Shenandoah Valley through the rolling, verdant hills of Virginia, dotted with pretty little farms.
Once again we had no plans for lunch, but Martha spotted a sign along the interstate (she seems to be a channel for serendipity) and we exited for the unlikely Fort Valley Nursery which supposedly had a Cafe ensconsed somewhere within, past the bedding plants and in between the oversized flowerpots and garden birdbaths and statuary.
There we found little tables scattered here and there, and enjoyed surprisingly good sandwiches made from fresh ingredients. A large group of women were gathering for a birthday luncheon and I think we grabbed the last unreserved table just in time. Serendipity!
After lunch we left Virginia and passed briefly through West Virginia and Maryland before entering Pennsylvania, home of the Amish people who have survived here for decades without "the convenience" of modern technology. It is an appealing, monastic kind of life, and yet I found it filled with contradictions as well. We arrived just in time for "Ed's Buggy Tour," which took us from a surprisingly developed commercial area filled with chain hotels and restaurants, just a short way down quiet lanes into a remarkable farming community.
George and Mike, the two horses pulling our buggy, lurched us forward (and backward in time) without delay. Mike seemed to have been having a quarrel with George that our arrival had interrupted; he snapped at an ear and shoved his shoulder little sparring youngsters might do.
Our driver and guide was Sam, a genial and informative Mennonite who knew the Amish well and willingly answered our many questions about this way of life, so marooned in tradition and yet just a short distance from American culture in all its bustle, the sound of traffic out on the highway within easy earshot, jet aircraft flying overhead.
Here there were no telephones, no electricity, wash flapping on the line, women in long dresses, bearded men just like the photos you often see. The men grow their beards when they are married, and do not shave, and yet they have no mustaches, a holdover from "the old ways." The sewing machines are operated by air, pumped by foot.
The fields are plowed by teams of horses. And yet there is a solar panel on the roof, and power to a cash register in the little shop under the farmhouse where quilts and jams and jellies are sold to curious tourists, a bargain made with Ed's Buggy Tours," I suppose, for access to their lives. It looked like the woman in the shop could have swiped a credit card through the machine. We were not to cross a line, though, and were told not to take photographs of any of the Amish.
We bought an Amish horseshoe from a farm-boy. The quilts were beautiful but very expensive, and I spotted this little hand-lettered sign scotch-taped to the wall of the shop.
The Amish, as religious as they are, have no churches; they worship in homes every other Sabbath, taking turns conducting a service still spoken in Old High Dutch, like a Catholic Mass sung in Latin.
Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn was quaint and comfortable; we checked in, and then found a bustling little tavern not far away. We came out of the restaurant to see a hazy full moon just coming up over the peaceful countryside down below the parking lot and its lights. It made you want to live on a quiet farm like this. We ourselves no longer watch television (although we have a DVD player and computers) so I can understand the desire to live this kind of life, plowing behind a team of horses, hoeing and seeding and living a life rooted so firmly to the past. I once tried to cut firewood entirely with a hand-saw, but shivering every night in my cold little house in Barnardsville before I met Martha led me to learn about chainsaws (but never to use a power log-slitter! - I would only split wood with a maul). I think there is a balance there somewhere.
On the way back to the motel, we saw the most amazing sight, but too quickly to take a photo. Road work was going on, backhoes working late at night widening and installing sidewalks, and perched on a fence along the road was an entire Amish family (men and boys anyway), watching in wonder, wearing those big wide hats, gazing at these strange groaning and banging pieces of machinery, bright yellow dinosaurs - but from the future, not the past.
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