Between Intercourse and Paradise!

If you've been reading our blog, you'll KNOW that we've been having a superb time - but we bet that you didn't expect a blog with THIS title! No, this is not a case of 'too much information' - this is where we were yesterday! Intercourse and Paradise are two towns in Lancaster County, south-eastern Pennsylvania, the heart of the Amish country. For those of you who would rather focus on another interpretation, let us remind you that before you can go from Intercourse to Paradise, you first have to go to Bird in Hand ... it may be old-fashioned to call girls 'birds', but the sequence seems appropriate!

In the summer, we are told, it is almost impossible to move on the roads of Lancaster county for gawking tourists. On a warm, damp October day we were able to feel that we were visitors, and we carefully refrained from gawking. We both believe in complying with the wish of the Amish people that they should not be photographed, but managed to take some great shots of their buggies and horses - it's amazing to see a black buggy travelling amongst all the cars and semi-trailers, the horse proceeding at a smart clip that many old cars would envy and not at all intimidated by the traffic.

We lunched at a large, touristy restaurant, which specialised in Amish foods, and visited a general store and quilt shop in Intercourse, before heading back to the Bird in Hand farmers market. As well as the superb quilts, Frances was fascinated by the Amish dolls, which show no facial features, and John loved the old-fashioned wooden toys. Oh to have room in our cases for all the things we'd love to buy! Instead, we purchased a range of German-style cheeses and sausages (wursts), a sticky pecan loaf and farm-fresh eggs.

Today we've spent the day in Mechanicsburg PA (There's a lot of funnily-named burgs around here!) and can't believe the welcome that the locals give us as we wandered the attractive streets. The local barber, in a shop that hasn't been altered, except for the provision of electricity, since 1890, even insisted on giving us two mugs from the large collection on his walls! We visited a bar called 'The Gingerbread Man', talked to a fellow who spends his mornings in the family hardware store and his afternoons selling clothes 'from 1880 to 1980', and lunched at a cafe which had a working radio studio attached. Most houses are decorated for Halloween (does nobody ever steal the pumpkins sitting on the sidewalk beside the front steps?) and a large number display the American flag. The churches have tall white spires, there are yellow chrysanthemums in boxes beside the cute yellow fire hydrants, under falling showers of yellow leaves ... we can't help swivelling our heads to see if we're on a film set!

On a more prosaic note, we're still getting no emails (not even junk mail) on our usual address, so we're now using Frances' (fwindolf) mailbox at ********@une.edu.au Don't use the stars, of course - just fill in the name! This address is not for jokes, games, pictures, but if you want to send us a message, this appears to be the best way. For those who have sent messages to the blog about Queensland's rain, we hate to inform you that we've had no proper rain, and only 2 days with slight drizzle in our trip so far - we've had sun day after day, with occasional rain at night when we're safely inside. Someone, somewhere is looking after us!