Visiting the Amish in Lancaster, PA

Hi! It's a beautiful Sunday here in Paducah, and I haven't written on my Blog for a while. I thought I would share some of the photos I took while I was in Lancaster a week ago for a quilt show planning meeting. I have reduced the size of the photos to make this message load faster. You can enlarge any of the photos by clicking on them.

We (Terry Guill and I) stayed at the new Cork Factory Hotel. It is a restored cork factory with a lot of charm. My room had a comfortable bed, a huge shower with lots of hot water (not always the case in hotels these days), and very high ceilings.

Like many hotels and convention centers today, the Cork Factory Hotel had a very interesting bar of "green" soap.

The box says "This innovative ergonomically shaped "waste reducing" soap has been designed to eliminate the unused center of traditional soap bars."

When you think about it...what do we usually throw away - that center that they didn't put into the bar in the first place. Great idea! The box is made from natural recycled packaging with soy based inks.


While we were there, Terry and I had a couple of hours to spend seeing the sights, so we took a buggy ride into the Amish countryside. Here are a few photos from our ride....

We knew we were getting close to the farming area when we began passing the buggies on the highway.

Aaron & Jessica's Buggy Rides was the one we chose. There are a number of families along the way that provide these rides.

Our ride began by driving through a covered bridge. Did you know that there are 27 covered bridges in Lancaster County and many of them are near the city of Lancaster. Sometimes you can look over and see one as you are driving along.

It was fun to see all of the flowers blooming at every home along the way
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What a pastoral scene. Our driver told us that 80 families live on the farms you can see in the background.

In addition to horse and buggy travel, this young man was hitching a ride on his wagon as it rolled downhill. Both young and old alike used these scooters - a bicycle with a flat section for your foot...and no seat. They moved along at a pretty good speed on these scooters.

Someone asked what the children did. Then we say this young girl making hay on this hot 90+ degree day. The children help with chores around the farm.

We had a fun afternoon enjoying the peace and quiet of the Amish countryside. We are having fun learning more about Lancaster and the Amish community there.

The dates for the AQS Quilt Show in Lancaster are March 16 - 19, 2011. You can make your hotel reservations now; just click here to book your room online.