Intruder Alert!

For lack of anything better to do this afternoon we took off on a drive to check out the local scenery. This is why we love our GPS. We can drive around all willy nilly on back roads as crazy as we wanna be and can always find our way back home without any trouble. We are in the heart of Western PA's Amish farmland so that is what we were driving around in. The GPS can sometimes bring us into some rather odd and interesting situations. We tend to be drawn to the smallest dirt roads we can find as they usually take you to the best spots. What we learned today is this... small dirt roads in Amish country lead into peoples' back yards. I am here to tell ya... we blew some minds in the farmland today. At one point we were literally driving through a family of Amish people's yard between their home and barn while they stood there 5 feet away from our passing truck starring at us with blank faces. Oops. We had entered their yard from a dirt path (that I am sure has never had a motorized vehicle on it, ever) out back in their corn field so imagine their confusion and surprise when our giant F250 rounded the corner of the barn into the yard. I thought I was going to die. Billy just waved at them and drove on through. We had kicked up a cloud of dust that was absolutely ridiculous and I am sure they were all choking on it for 5 minutes after we were gone. Yup... you don't really do that very often... or ever. You really should never, ever do it really. But we did. One kid was standing there in his straw hat, suspenders and black woolen trousers holding a single giant piece of Indian Corn with huge corn stalks still hanging off of it. He looked like he had stepped out of a Winslow Homer painting. It was ultra bizarre (for us and for them.)

My favorite thing about Amish farms is their clothes lines. Blow this one up to get a better look...




It is very picturesque countryside. We saw lots of scenes like this...




I love the way that farmer is stooped over. He's a hard worker people! My last pic is just one of my artsy fartsy shots... I liked the way these water towers looked against the bright blue sky...




I'll be sure to report in again if we manage to invade anyone else's privacy before our stay here is over.