WITNESS

We drove through a little bit of Maryland and moved up into Pennsylvania to get to our next stop. As we were driving along, we started seeing horse-drawn carriages, bicyclists, and walkers. There are even highway warning signs to alert drivers to the travelers without motorized locomotion. Yes, we are definitely in the country of the Amish. A lot of the roads we traveled were two lane roads, so we had to pay more attention than usual.

We remember seeing the movie called Witness, which starred Harrison Ford and Kellie McGillis. It was a story about a young Amish boy who witnessed a murder while passing through the train station in Philadelphia. Ford played a police detective who, after a serious injury which is a clue to the mystery, took it upon himself to keep the boy safe so he could testify at trial. There were several great twists in the story. A large part of the story reflected the Amish way of life while Ford’s character was recuperating with the boy’s family. We give it four out of five paws.

We saw so many tidy farms in the Pennsylvania countryside. We stayed in Lancaster County. The Amish population in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is one of the largest and fastest-growing in the United States. According to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, the Lancaster County Amish population was estimated to be 38,095 in 2018, up from 33,143 in 2017. The Amish population in Lancaster County has almost tripled since 1960. The State of Pennsylvania has the highest number of Amish settlements in the United States with a total of 53 settlements.

We parked our house on a site which had a great view of an incredibly beautiful valley. We met some other cats and shared a great sunset. The next morning, we moved and drove through more farmland on little two lane roads. We were struck at how so many houses were built right next to the road. We felt like we could have stopped and held a normal conversation with someone on her front porch. We’re thinking that these houses have been there since these roads were little dirt trails with horses, wagons, and pedestrians being the only traffic.

Next, we camped near a town called East Stroudsburg. It was raining when we got there and only let up a few times. Between the rains, we got outside a little bit. This place was already decorating for Halloween, which was over a month away at the time. The striking feature of the campground was a gaggle of guinea hens. They were loud and roamed around like they owned the place. We sensed gang activity, but we held our tongues and kept a low profile. We’re on the move.

More soon,

Betty and Buster