One of the really nice things about staying in a camper while you "camp" is that you can still manage to keep yourself somewhat presentable so that you can go out in public and do fun things.
We have been a few times during our summer visits home, but this was our first time to visit in the fall. It was definitely different, just as fun, but in different ways.
They had quite a few baby animals to hold or visit... as who wants to hold a baby cow?
Josh and Luke with the little baby peeps.
Since the corn is nice and high this time of year, the kids were able to take a wagon ride (pulled by a tractor) through the field.
That girl's crazy.
Look at Josh. He knows it. ;)
This sign reminded us of where we were supposed to be.
(We visited Cherry Crest on a Saturday. Shhh!)
The kids loved climbing on this spider webbed shaped rope system.
Marshall liked to just sit in the middle and be bounced around by everyone else.
Abby and one of our favorite plants, the Grillers plant. I mean, soybean plant!
I love this picture of Amelia. It truly shows her love of life and her ability to extract extreme amounts of joy from such little things. Every emotion she feels, she feels with 100% of her body.
She has such a larger than life personality. Compared to her, the rest of us are pretty boring.
A hay bale maze with interior corridors.
Fun!
Told ya.
That girl goes all out no matter what she is doing. :D
This is the goat saying "Oh, yeah, that's the spot.... right there...."
I love that even though my boy is 9, he gets as excited to see trains as he did at 3.
We were so happy watching the train approach that we barely noticed a familiar sound of...
Hoofbeats!
But when we realized what we were hearing, a whole new realization set in on what we were seeing.
I have literally never seen anything like this in my life.
There was an Amish guy in the buggy (20-ish?) and he was BOOKING.
He was racing the train! The horse's eyes were as big as saucers as he ran past us. I'm fairly certain he was pleading for us to help free him from his madman driver. The Amish guy never took his eyes off the train.
He made it, but barely!
I can't believe the confidence he had in that horse, that it wouldn't get spooked and come to a stop either on or too close to the tracks. The train could not have slowed down. It was coming too fast and was far too heavy. Something tells me this was not the horse or drivers first attempts at being the Amish version of Evil Knievel.
When the sun set (it was a Saturday, ya know!), we headed for the food carts. They have the best corn on the cob here. They roast it right in the husk and it is FANTASTIC! I was going to get the kids another PA favorite, funnel cake, but they decided they wanted to try the deep fried pb&j instead. Know what? It was really good! They just took a plain old grape Uncrustable and tossed it in a fryer. The four of us split it, so no one is going to have any coronary issues from it, but it really tasted much better than it should have.
The kids repeatedly dimed me out about local things that they haven't had that just flabbergasted Beth and Rick. Like sweet lebanon bologna. And shoo-fly pie (wet bottom or otherwise). Every time some new Dutch food came up and they got that confused look on their faces, I could feel Beth and Rick judging me a little bit. You know, for letting my kids down on their PA heritage. Their roots. But in my defense, I make them apple dumplings on a somewhat regular basis, (sometimes we even consider them dinner), I have made them many different flavors of whoopie pies, I offer them a red beet egg anytime we are home and I buy one for myself, they wake up to hot crockpots full of apple butter for their biscuits and they all know and love birch beer and Turkey Hill iced tea. We love to eat sandwiches on soft pretzel rolls and Amelia at 2 could tell you in no uncertain terms that she didn't want a chip that wasn't a Martin's BBQ Ripple.
So, we gave them sweet lebanon bologna while we were camping. It took a bit of cajoling, but I even got them to trust me on putting the chips on the sandwich and smooshing it all together.
And...I'll be making them a wet bottom shoo-fly pie for Christmas.
If you think of anything else they may be missing out on, please remind me! I forget what is special to the area because i just take it for granted.
They were also selling lots of this PA treat at Cherry Crest; Chicken Corn Soup.
We hadn't had any for a really long time. And it was so cold. And it smelled so good.
BUT... we waited until we got back to NC and I made a big pot of it for the kids. I knew that if I'd bought some from the large vats at Cherry Crest, we would have been disappointed because my Grandma's recipe is the very best. It was still chilly and rainy here the night I made it and it was comfort food at it's very best.
Thanks for a great weekend, Roberts family. We love you!
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