We never meant to find ourselves in Amish Country in western New York State, but these things happen in the best regulated families and ours is not one of those.
We had no idea there was a wide ranging community of active Amish farmers in New York State; we thought we had left them behind in Indiana and Ohio but here we were, on a road clearly labeled “New York Amish Trail.” To our astonishment we were driving a genuine all American tourist route! Cool! Layne got her camera ready and shared her images from her passenger seat with me.
I suppose one could say the Amish have learned to tolerate us, the English, they wave solemnly and smile and say hello but the whole experience makes me feel a little uncomfortable, as though the inmates in the zoo have been trained to please the visitors.
They live their lives and we live ours and I wonder how they shake their heads at our antics. Visitors to the Keys get short shrift from locals tired of being observed at their daily tasks so why the patient Amish farmers and craftsmen, the gardeners and bakers would feel any more cheerful about us driving through their horse droppings I cannot say.
But let me tell you they bake a superb molasses cookie! They won’t sell them to you on Sunday but six days a week you can dive into their help-yourself roadside farm stands. Check out the size of their tomatoes, and you know they taste as tomatoes should, like they did in your nostalgic childhood. I have never seen larger ones.
I find the communal living ideal of Amish life interesting as much as it is obviously not to my taste. However choosing to retire into a nomadic life leaves me discovering that in the day to day practical aspects we have more in common than at first appears!
We used to hang our clothes in the house instead of using a dryer but we don’t have that option now of course. But like young students we are always on the lookout for a decent communal laundry! And our pleasure when we find one… has to be seen to be believed. Oh joy!
When we traveled by sailboat we did a great deal of walking. Everything required walking somewhere with our dogs. I empathize with the locals… During the 1973 gas crisis in Italy my sisters hitched a horse to a pony trap we had in our vast inherited home and we traveled on “no gas days” by horse and trap. I thought it was fun the first time but I missed my motorcycle in short order.
There are lots of farm stands across this region and not all Amish. We stopped at many of them slowing our progress between rain showers as we meandered across New York state.
The country here is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s not the obvious crags and peaks out west or the vast open desert and endless open horizon. Yet I find the valleys and rolling hills comforting in a way. There is a great deal of poverty exemplified by tacky worn out homes and sagging trailers and trash but the farms, neat and tidy and active are a reminder that people here do continue that tradition of tilling the soil, most with internal combustion and that stubborn few with the original horsepower.
We found a state forest with free camping so we stopped for one night under the thick dark canopy and fell asleep to the sounds of silence. We awoke to the sounds of a massive rainstorm battering our tin roof. A travel day became a movie day and in the afternoon I took my musket (a digital Panasonic camera in point of fact) and assumed the coonskin cap of Natty Bumpo and took my dog for a walk in the wilderness.
We ate gnocchi for dinner and listened to more rain…and on into the morning.
Well, we were refreshed and I was ready to drive the rain notwithstanding, thus we left the Stockton State Forest, driving past the stockade of the second amendment freak littered with angry aggressive suggestions that he’d rather die than give up his guns. It seemed odd as he was living far apart from his neighbors and I wondered who he thought might want his guns enough to risk getting shot for them. The forest apparently was named for Richard Stockton of Princeton New Jersey, one of the revolutionaries who signed the Declaration of Independence so maybe that made the man hiding behind his stockade think being loud about his guns was important. For others the forest is a trash can. Oh well, it’s there for all of us.
We saw three vehicles in two days, two trucks leaving, but also including one young van lifer driving by following the iOverlander instructions and later driving back out apparently not attracted to a damp forest parking space.
The weather continued showery mixed with sunny spells, and we enjoyed puffy cloudy skies over rolling green hills as we followed Google’s “No highways” directions to a creamery Layne found on the Harvest Host plan. Zucchini pasta and cheese for dinner at Sunset View Creamery.
Oh and don’t be fooled. We didn’t out run the rainstorms and once again we went to bed listening to the comforting pitter patter on the roof. Inside, our van is snug and dry and condensation free.
Except now our fridge is bulging with raw milk and rich crumbly farm made cheese. Score!
