Amish Country

For Fall Break this year, we went to Amish country in Northeastern, Ohio. We have driven through different Amish communities but have never gone to one as a destination.

I have to admit that I am a little obsessed with those cute Amish buggies, and finally I got my fill.




I am also a little obsessed with the Amish people, but I have only a few pictures of them because I was trying to respect their privacy. Here is a picture of an Amish women going to work at Der Dutchman Restaurant, where they served homemade Amish food that was sooo delicious! I almost forgot what real food tasted like.



The view behind Der Dutchman was just as beautiful as the food was good!


In fact, everywhere we stopped . . .

 or drove, the scenery was breathtaking.

Our other favorite place to eat was the Boyd and Wirthmann Restaurant. A little hole-in-the-wall place where the locals eat, which has been around since 1938. We also enjoyed stopping at the little cheese and meat shops scattered across the countryside.

And of course we can't forget the millions of furniture stores we browsed through. This was the usual position of Aubrey and Merinda each time we went into another furniture store. Merinda was pretending to be a sleep, unlike her sister who was actually asleep (I have a hunch that this would probably not be a teenagers first pick as far as vacations go).

 

The other thing I loved to do as we drove the many winding roads, was view the Amish Farms nestled in between rolling hills of vibrant Fall colors, with contrasting dark grey, blue, and white laundry blowing in the wind.

 

Speaking of Amish Farms, I really wanted the girls to have a glimpse into what Amish life was really like, so we spent most of a day learning all about the Amish at the Yoder's Homestead.   

 
 Merinda got her wish of riding in a buggy around the property. After that we took a tour of a one-room schoolhouse where children ages 5-13 attend from several surrounding homesteads (but about 40% of Amish children go to public school until the eighth grade). There are about 95 of these Amish parochial schools in Holmes County, Ohio (the largest Amish community in the world and where we spent the bulk of our time). The girls and I enjoyed talking with our schoolhouse tour guide, a sixteen-year old Amish girl, who pronounced her English words very carefully and methodically.

A view of the barn and country store. 

 Other than the buggy ride, Merinda's favorite part of homestead was the barn with all the animals you could pet.

 Here is another Amish tour-guide enjoying the company of some fellow tourists.

 
 I think it is safe to say that Aubrey's favorite part of the homestead was the ducks. Of course these are no ordinary ducks - they are Amish ducks!

Here is a view of the two homes we toured. The home on the right was quite old, and we learned what Amish life was like about 80 years ago. The home on the left was a representation of what an Amish home would look like today, and actually it didn't look much different than our homes, only more simple with nothing on the walls, and no electricity (however, there are many variations and sects of Amish and Mennonites in the area who's lifestyle and dress range from very conservative all the way to how you and I live today). 

 This is a picture of the large year-round garden, and out-house tucked in the corner.

Our tour guide for the two homes was not Amish, however, most of her friends were Amish, and she certainly knew her stuff. . .

We learned just about everything there is to know concerning Amish dress and culture, and the girls were pretty much spent by the end of our tour,

 that is until we reached the Amish kitchen and got to choose our favorite hot-out-of-the-oven Amish baked-good. My pick were huge snicker-doodle and gingerbread cookies, and the girls chose iced chocolate chip banana and pumpkin breads. What a perfect ending to the perfect Amish experience!