Archive for » April, 2010 «

Road Trip to the Amish Country: A Step Back in Time
Sunday, April 11th, 2010 / Island Chick

I’m planning a road trip!  An all girl’s weekend in the Amish Country. A whole weekend of girlie bonding in the middle of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

What is the Amish country?  To better explain it, Wikipedia does an excellent job – Pennsylvania Dutch Country refers to an area of southeastern Pennsylvania, United States that by the American Revolution had a high percentage of Lutherans. There were also German Reformed, Moravian, Amish, Mennonite and other German sectarian inhabitants.

Amish

What it breaks down to is this.  There is a settlement of people living in the beautiful rolling hills of Pennsylvania that live by God’s rule.  No electricity, no radio, no TV, no cars.  Very very religious.  The thing about the Amish is that they have chosen a lifestyle completely tuning out what they consider the sins of modern society.

Even though this sounds like people from another planet, they are actually a very peaceful group.  Their history is thoroughly fascinating and I’ll be able to see if first hand.

One of my girlfriends suggested this trip.  She had been a couple of times and I’d never been.  When my other girlfriend found out about the trip, she wanted to go, too, so we decided this was going to be an all girlfriend field trip.  God knows what kind of trouble we will get into.

Anyway, I decided to find out more about these people when I came upon a series of videos at YouTube concerning the teenagers who wanted out.  They had lived all their lives as Amish, but some decided enough was enough…

Isn’t that the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen?

Here’s more:

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVUQlR7EMMc&feature=related
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qihiKszP53Y&feature=related
Part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4MKua0Huuw&feature=related
Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D-Xgk30pDo&feature=related
Part 6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vp5dls7p3c&feature=related
Part 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbrdL9n3GM&feature=related

If you made it through all seven, I’m sure you’ll be feeling as I did when I watched them.  It’s a world full of belief that the family is number one.

Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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Category: Pennsylvania  Tags: , , , , ,  2 Comments
Smokie Mountain Sunrise
Friday, April 02nd, 2010 / Island Chick

I’m trying to think how many times I have actually been to the Smokies.  For those reading this blog and don’t know what the Smokies is or where they are, the Smokies is a major mountain range in the southern part of the Appalachian Mountains.  For someone who has never been there, it’s something magical about these mountains that’s really hard to put into just the right words.

Let me give you a visual so you can try to understand where I’m coming from:

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Smokie Mountains

That still doesn’t do it justice.  Let me try again:

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Smokie Mountains

Ahh…now we’re cooking.

Like I was saying, I don’t know how many times I have been to the Smokies, it’s been that many and it’s not like it’s a hop, skip and jump away.  Going from Chincoteague to Pigeon Forge was exactly 620.90 miles which is 10 hours and 31 minutes driving time.  Roughly, I would say I’ve been four or five times.

The reasons were varied.  The first time it was on a lark coming back from Arkansas.  I saw the sign for the Smokie National Park and decided to veer off 80 and go check it out.

But the second, third and fourth time, it was for vacation because ever since that first time, I felt like I had to keep going back.

CIMG0335

Smokie Mountains

And you see why?

The picture above was a special moment.  I wanted some sunrise pictures.  In order to have sunrise pictures, you have to get up literally at the crack of dawn.  Forget the fact that you’ve not had much sleep from the night before.  You were on a mission.  Here’s another:

CIMG0337

Smokie Mountains

These were taken off the deck of our mile high cabin.  Oh, btw, if they tell you these cabins are in the clouds, believe’em.

I’ll be back to tell you more about my Smokie vacations tomorrow.

Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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Category: Smokie Mountains, Tennessee  Tags: , , , ,  3 Comments
Tree Art in Blacksburg, Virginia
Thursday, April 01st, 2010 / Island Chick

I’ve had somewhat bad news.  We’re waiting on the results from blood work to come back for one of our pooches, Skylar.  The doctor found a mass on her spleen yesterday.  It’s my daughter’s dog, but I’m just as close to her.  Please pray for her!

I’ve not posted in a few days because I’ve had to put a lot of muscle into my online business, although I have got good news – I’ve got a trip to Lancaster, PA, coming up!  I’ll tell you all about it as it gets closer, but I wanted to share a picture with you I found the other day.  Here it is:

CIMG0251I’m not sure if you can make this out, but is this the craziest tree art you’ve ever seen?  We were traveling to the Smokies and this was taken at a hotel somewhere on the Interstate in Blacksburg, Virginia.  These two trees are actually nailed to this brick wall and are thriving!  All of the branches are nailed, too.  It was the neatest but craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

And here’s a picture of Skylar who went with us and who ended up loving the media room in our cabin but I’m jumping ahead of the story.  Tomorrow…our first trip to the Smokies!

CIMG0277

Until next time, wavinghand

Island Chick

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Category: Virginia  Tags: , , , ,  3 Comments