Thursday was a travel day; we drove from Fisherman Memorial Campground in Rhode Island to Newburgh, New York.  The interesting part of the story is that in trying to find a specific New York State campground and driving for miles down a winding, twisting, single-lane, two-way, dirt road, we ended up at a dead end.  Literally, in the middle of a forested area; the first time Waze has failed us.  Solution: we went to our favorite old reliable spot, Walmart, and that is where we spent the night.

Day 2:  We drove to Pennsylvania and checked into the Pitch Pond Campground.  It’s near a small and not that attractive pond, but it is a pond and thus the name.  We secured a campsite in a semi-secluded section which is exactly what we like for Shabbat.

Pitch Pond is in Lancaster County, home to over 31,000 Amish people.  (Pennsylvania as a whole has almost 64,000, second in the U.S. after Ohio.)  So, as we had Friday morning open, we drove to an old Amish farm house – now a visitor’s center – and demonstration farm and joined a tour.  From our interesting guide, we heard about this unique group of people leading a simple, religious life in their own way.

When you think of the Amish you usually think of them as farmers, but this quickly growing community – they have up to 10 children per family with only a small percentage of dropouts from the fold – are doing other things (such as crafts and small businesses) which allow them to keep their isolated lifestyles.

In other ways, though, there is a certain amount of mixing with the outside world.  They see doctors and use hospitals.  They shop at local stores, and places such as Target and Walmart have set up separate covered parking areas for their horses and buggies.

In driving through Lancaster County after the tour we found many extremely attractive, well-taken care of farms, without equipment lying all over the place, and beautiful houses and lawns: Amish farms.  The countryside is not grand as in some places – no lakes or mountains or waterfalls – but the sheer beauty of land that is well taken care of with obvious pride.

And on our drive, we found more covered bridges.  Pennsylvania has over 200 covered bridges, with Lancaster having the most at 29. The ones we saw were one lane for two-way traffic and are still in use.  Unlike those we found in New Hampshire, there were no name plaques on these bridges.

We also drove to a city called Efrata, spelled Ephrata; we had to go.  Small town, not much going on….

As our day ended, we returned to our campsite to begin preparing for Shabbat.