June 29 – Intercourse

Today we were in full tourist mode. We went to the Amish area of the state, in Lancaster County and specifically to the town of Intercourse. Once again it was a long drive, at over an hour.

We started at the Kitchen Kettle Village, a small pedestrian only area with about 30 shops.

This cow was out of milk.

Checking out the empty supply bucket.

Our first real stop was this place.

Lots of things to sample.

Even though is it really bad for you, I just had to buy one and try it.

We ate a lot of samples but I think they came out ahead as Jennie bought a lot of stuff that was too good to resist.

While Jennie went into some of the shops, I listened to this guy. He was very good.

Jennie always likes to check out the sayings on the signs and shirts.

The mascot came along to scare some of the kids.

This was an interesting shop for me.

As I was waiting for Jennie in another store I saw this great scene in the field behind the village. A person riding some horse drawn farm equipment was just visible on the horizon.

 

I had read that we should head down the street a bit to get a great soft pretzel.

They weren’t very busy so the guy showed us around and explained how they make them. I didn’t know that the dough has to be dipped in a weak lye solution to get the dark brown colour.

Some pretzels, dipping sauce and lemonade.

Taking a buggy ride seems to be a popular things to do but it didn’t really interest us. There we a lot of companies doing it.

Jennie wanted to go to dinner at one of the many Smorgasbords in the area. It was still early so we hit a fruit market and then drove through the country side to the place Jennie had picked out.

It was interesting to see the farms so close together. I guess since the some of the Amish don’t use power equipment they cannot farm as much land.

We were blown away by how massive the Shady Maple Smorgasbord was.

Here is the Google Maps view. Notice the size of the parking lot.

You pay for the meal before you go in. This the just the front lobby where you line up to pay.

We got there at about 4 pm and even then it was pretty busy. When we left it was much worse. The place is so big they actually have two duplicate buffet lines to more easily handle all the people.

We didn’t think there was anything particularly Amish about it but the food was all really good. It was steak night so I had a nice New York Strip.

After all the other food we had had today, I was actually in pain upon leaving. I sat around to recover while Jennie went to the equally massive gift shop downstairs. The entire lower level, at 45,000 square feet, is devoted to the “shop”.

Trinkets, off to infinity.

Jennie was down there almost an hour and said she barely got part of the way around.

There were some interesting 3D creations in the main lobby.

It was a long drive home.

We are moving on to the next campground tomorrow.