Fall Odyssey 2006
September 28, 2006--Bird-In-Hand, PA to Lawrenceville, NJ (185 mi)


I woke up in my Bird-in-Hand Village Inn bed & breakfast room at about 7:30am and was out the door actually withOUT breakfast. They only had ordinary continental-style miscellaneous breakfast food--I wanted eggs and other more substantial stuff. Plus I was anxious to get out in the morning air--It was another perfect day. I managed to snap a shot of an Amish carriage driving past the Village Inn (see above). I took a few shots from inside the room (see directly below) showing the room itself as well views from my windows of the other quaint little red brick buildings of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania.

View looking westward (above) and southward (below) from my room's windows. The street shown is Hwy 340 through Bird-in-Hand which is actually just a little 2-lane road. It's also known as the "Old Philadelphia Pike".

After checking out from my room I just drove around the neighboring towns looking for a cool place to stop for breakfast. This wasn't as straightforward as one would think. I finally settled on Bird-in-Hand Restaurant at 10am after having driven through many backroads of the region looking for something a little more "off the beaten path". No dice. Had to settle for the huge tourist restaurant only a few blocks from my bed & "breakfast" spot. There were actually very few tourists any way. It was a Thursday morning in late September--most people are all Amished-out by then I guess.

So between about 8:30am and 2pm I toured the triangular region between the townships of Bird-in-Hand, New Holland and Intercourse, Pennsylvania. New Holland is famous for being the home town of the New Holland Co. which produces tractors and other large farm & construction equipment. Intercourse is famous for.....yeh, well..... it's made a name for itself too.

I savored the expansive, rolling farmlands of this region. Sure enough it's wall to wall Amish farms and people. They absolutely rule the roost in these parts. I really got lost in the simple and peaceful vibe of this area. Once again, the beauty of the landscapes can not be fairly captured by the limitations of my little SONY DSC-W1 Cybershot camera. I tried anyway.

I took a few shots of things besides farms that were distinctively Amish: buggies of various "horse power" going down the road...



...furniture stores and craft stores like The Hidden Green Barn which claims to be: "The Best Kept Secret In Intercourse" (and that's quite a claim!).....

....and a typical Amish school house (below) with kids out playing in the school yard. This became my favorite photo of Lancaster County because it's like a peek into a previous century. The purity and peacefulness of this setting became horrifically disturbed only 4 days after this photo was taken when on Monday, October 2nd a twisted soul took the lives of 5 Amish girls at their schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, PA--7 miles from where this photo was taken. After experiencing the Amish community and countryside on this trip, I was beyond stunned that anyone would bring violence to this setting. It just makes no sense.

Before leaving the region I stopped to write-up and mail postcards at the Bird-in-Hand post office (below), then I was back down the road eastward toward Philadelphia, PA. Somewhere along the N. Ronks Rd between Bird-in-Hand and Ronks, PA a truck with flashing cop lights pulled up close behind me. I thought: "oh crap! I'm going to get a ticket for going 37 mph in a 35 mph Amish zone!" But then the truck pulled away and raced past me and I could see that it was a pick-up truck filled, both in the cab AND the rear bed, with teenaged Amish boys (all with their wide brim black hats)! I was duped by a bunch of Amish teens who were no doubt out to mess with anyone sporting an out of state license plate. Whether you're Amish or not, you still gotta' be a teen a SOME point! Kinda' funny actually--wouldn't their poppas be cross with them seeing them riding in a gasoline-fueled motor car!?! There's trouble a-brewin'.

I took Hwy 30 to Hwy 202 toward Philly and then I got so tired that I had to pull over somewhere to sleep for a while--I was falling asleep at the wheel. I pulled into the parking lot of a Prespyterian church in General Warren Village, PA just off Hwy 202. When I got back to driving I noticed that I was within a few miles of Valley Forge National Historic Park, so I went on a very misguided and windy backroads trek to find Valley Forge. I got lost repeatedly along these country backroads, but I was grateful to be out there viewing all those stunning, lush farms and estates nonetheless. This is no doubt "gazillionaire country" in this area--all those wealthy gentleman farmers from Philadelphia out there staking their claim of nearby quasi-rural America. Lucky bastards indeed. The photo below was taken in this region--how's that for a front yard, eh? Horses and geese and enough sod to play polo on.

I arrived at Valley Forge as it was becoming dark, so I was unable to tour around. I just sat in my car in the Visitor's Center parking lot and tried to decide how to spend my evening. I didn't want to arrive in Philadelphia after dark--I like to navigate a large city that I've never been to before during the daylight, thank you. Eventually I just drove on through the impressive night-lit Philly metro area anyways. I called up my friend Brad on my cell phone and had him guide me through the area while using Mapquest. It was kinda' fun actually: my personal live GPS assistant Brad steered me across the Delaware River over into New Jersey to a Red Roof Inn near the Quakerridge Mall at Lawrenceville, NJ (which just is a few miles NE of Trenton, NJ). I checked into the hotel by 9:30pm and then went out for dinner at a Red Lobster--just because it was RIGHT there.