Aimless in Amish Country

Some childhood memories ought to stay in the hazy, soft-colored past.

Spent the day in Amish Country yesterday while K took the LSAT -- and kicked ass, I should say. Not that her score will be available anytime soon, but we can all safely assume an excellent score.

The only testing site anywhere near Charm City was Millersville, PA, right on the edge of Amish Country, USA. So while she sweated it out on the test, I wandered around aimlessly in search of chocolate (great!) shoofly pie (no dice) and decent gifts for various folks (yeek!).

It all started our so well, with a quick trip to Lititz, north of Lancaster, home of the Wilbur Chocolate Factory. The sweet, warm smell of chocolate flooded my senses as I stepped out of the car, bringing a smile to my face. Surely this is the greatest factory to live next to. Better than the smells that come out of Eddie's on some mornings.

I quickly made my way across the street, camera at the ready to catch the Oompa Loompas at work, only to find that they don't actually do a factory tour. However, they have a nifty little museum space with lots of chocolate-related items, and a store full of Wilbur items. Good stuff. I felt like a kid in some kind of store. It was hard to figure out what to buy, but I finally made some small purchases and left, a little sad that I couldn't take a picture of the smell to show K.

If I had known how little else there was to do in Amish Country, I would have stayed longer and eaten more chocolate.

We quickly discovered the night before that Lancaster City has little going on, while most folks seem to hang out at the Barnes and Noble on the edge of town. Aside from the very nice Italian Bakery near the courthouse, which closes too early, the city offered little of interest.

Not that the surrounding countryside did. I thought I'd spend the rest of the day taking in the sights and stealing people's souls with my camera, but the sights weren't much, and I felt bad about acosting the Amish. After all, they don't drive cars, they rarely use electricity and they're pacifists. Not bad.

Nothing left to do but shop, but every store was essentially the same as every other. Losts of country-ass kitsch, peppered with a few T-shirts and boxes of foodstuffs with Amish children on them. Not worth it.

Anyway, The LSAT is over, and I'll never go to Amish Country again. Except maybe the Train Museum. I missed that.