I just posted a quickie over at the Burnside Writers Blog on driving in Amish Country.

I’ll post it here as well, hope you enjoy…

For those who don’t know, I live in Intercourse, PA in the heart of Amish Country. It’s a great place to live and raise kids, except for Saturdays in the summer when the traffic in Intercourse is so bad it makes you want to run yourself over with an Amish lawnmower.

A few days ago I had my wonderful wife Erica take a picture of me in front of the “Welcome to Intercourse” sign at the park near our house. I told her I needed it for the blog. Though it was a bit embarrassing for her, she snapped away anyway while I made goofy faces in front of the sign. Yes, love does conquer all.

The topic for today’s discussion is driving in Amish country. Driving around in Amish country has some challenges that are fairly unique to the region. Amish buggies travel at a very slow pace, as you probably surmised, so a driver has to always be prepared to encounter one around every corner and over the crest of every hill. Passing buggies by crossing over double yellow lines is a necessity, but many tourists and out-of-staters do not know this, and as such will travel 5 MPH behind buggies for long periods of time until cars start passing them and they realize they can pass the buggy too. (Usually while they are passing the buggy the front seat passenger will stick a camera out the window for a picture, which probably makes the Amish angry in an old-school, anti-technology kind of way.)

But driving around here isn’t all bad. You do see some interesting things from time to time. In fact, I’ve had my camera phone ready over the last couple of weeks for any kodak moments that might arise while I was on the road. Here’s a few of the things I caught on film, err, phone.

Most buggies are covered, but as you can see here, some are not. Rumor has it that whenever a guy and a girl who are not married travel together, they are not allowed to ride in a covered buggy. Even the amish understand the power of teenage hormones. Since there are four people riding in this buggy, I’m guessing the reason they went with the convertible was just to enjoy a nice day.

Once in a while you’ll see a buggy hauling something behind it, but I have to tell you, this was the first time I had ever seen a buggy hauling a crate of live chickens. The crate appears to be too big for the wagon, so the thing looks like it could fall off at any second. Thankfully, you don’t take turns very fast when you’ve only got 1 horsepower under the hood. I’m not sure what happened to the chickens, but I’m guessing it didn’t end well for them.

On rare occasions you’ll see someone cutting out the middle man and leaving the buggy at home. This guy was riding a horse on the side of the road. Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend this. It’s just not that safe. Especially when there’s people in cars driving by trying to take pictures of you.

Another popular mode of transportation among the Amish is the scooter. Think of it as a 1-man buggy without the horse. As opposed to the razor scooters that have been huge with kids for the past 10 years, these amish scooters have huge wheels on them. Like, bicycle wheels. Not sure what the advantage is over the razor scooter, but I don’t see the Amish adopting the Razors into their way of life for another 50 years or so. I’m not sure why, but seeing an old Amish dude riding a scooter still makes me laugh. Probably because I’m a jerk.

Of course, you can’t really talk about driving in Amish country without discussing the emissions that their engines give off. Avoiding road apples is a way of life around here, and before long you don’t even notice it … UNLESS, the road apples in question are piled up at pump #3 of the local gas station. I got out to put gas in my car the other day and almost walked right into this heap of equine excrement. Seriously, someone want to explain to me what that pile of horse crap is doing at a gas pump? Feel free to share your thoughts on that, and anything else Amish-related in the comments section.

Well, that’s all for now. Y’all are welcome to come join us in Intercourse any time!

Here’s the second installment of my photo tour of Intercourse Heritage Days at Burnside.

(If you missed it, this was Day 1)

I’ve posted it below as well…

Heritage Days – Day 2

Back by popular demand – not really – it’s Day 2 of the Intercourse Heritage Days! Can you feel the excitement? Can you sense the anticipation? Can you smell the horse droppings? If you can’t, then you ain’t got no nose.

The crowd was hungry for a memorable landing, but the Wicked Witch of the Marlboros disappointed us all by landing safely in the clearing he was aiming for.

This weekend is Heritage Days down at the park. Lots of amish folks, volleyball, unhealthy food, and good photo ops. I took a few pictures and shared some insights over at the Burnside Blog.

I’ve also posted them here below…so read on for some Heritage Days goodness.

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Heritage Days – Day 1

This is one of our favorite weekends of the year in the Allain household. Once again the 3rd weekend in June is playing host to Intercourse Heritage Days. It started off a few years ago as a celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Intercourse (the town, not the act) and since then they have made the celebration a yearly tradition.

Our house is a 5-minute walk from the park in Intercourse, so we spend as much time there during the celebration as we can. I brought my camera along on Day 1 to capture the Intercourse experience for those of you who are still virgins to Lancaster County, PA. And I promise at some point I’ll get tired of making “intercourse” jokes. At least, I think I will.

I take terrible pictures. But if this was a good picture you would see that the boys in the background have lost their volleyball into the pond. A girl in a maroon dress has spent the past few minutes throwing rocks into the water to push the ball over to the opposing shore. If she successfully rescues the ball, she will be rewarded by being betrothed in marriage to the boy who knocked it into the pond.

Amish dress is still a bit of a curiosity to me. The boys wear collared shirts, suspenders, and black pants with no belts. Even when playing volleyball. They usually wear white high-top sneakers like you and I would have worn in the early 90s. These two blokes in the foreground are sporting the traditional amish bowl-cut. Notice how the neck is shaved, and all the long hair just stops at the same point like a hair traffic-jam. I’m pretty sure this is a look that will never be popular in regular american culture. If it ever does become mainstream, I hear that the amish will adopt the faux-hawk as their hair style of choice.

Another shot of some amish boys getting ready before their game. The spike that this dude is about to hit came about 5 feet from smashing me in the chest. Had that happened, I would have ran onto the court and fought him, setting amish/non-amish relations back about five years. Thankfully, we avoided this disaster.

Here’s some boys checking out the winners and losers brackets as the tournament gets underway. The guys in the gray and yellow looked and talked like Amish kids (they still speak in Pennsylvania Dutch, which is almost impossible for me to understand) but they had semi-normal haircuts, so I don’t if they were amish or not. Amish girls are not allowed to look at tournament brackets according to their religion, so the girl in the mint waits patiently in the foreground thinking about quilts and ice cream.

Here I am eating a funnel cake. Funnel cakes are pieces of fried dough covered in powdered sugar. They are about as good for you as a trans-fat IV.

Here my son Parker gets ready to participate in the tractor pull. The man in charge lets him know that if he doesn’t perform well, he will hide him in his mustache when no one is looking and he will be trapped there forever. He says that right now there are approximately thirty little boys and girls trapped in his mustache, and that it is a really awful place to live because it is hot in there and it smells like french onion soup.

Parker, fearing a life imprisoned in the mustache, pedals with a focus and determination that i have never seen from him before. His mediocre performance is just good enough to keep him out of the scary man’s upper lip prison.

You never know who will show up at Intercourse Heritage Days. The woman in the black walking with her mom is none other than Anne Beiler. You know her better as Auntie Anne, the pretzel lady who sells delicious soft pretzels at your local mall. She lives a few minutes away and was a judge for the Shoofly Pie contest. If you don’t know what Shoofly pie is, Google it. As you can see in the background, teal is still enjoying great popularity in Lancaster County. This might actually be the last great bastion of teal-colored shirts in the country. It really is something to be proud of.

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Well, that’s it from Day 1 of Intercourse Heritage Days. Day 2 promises to be just as exciting as the volleyball tournament continues, more bad food is consumed, and folks come in droves for the fireworks show. I’ll have an update as soon as I wake up from my funnel cake induced coma.

Click Here Day 2