Pennsylvania Dutch Treat

We spent a fascinating couple of hours visiting Valley Forge. The bike/pedestrian path system is excellent, and it was a great way to see the area. We met a number of people either jogging or walking along the trail, and as you can imagine, we answered a number of questions about our trip. On the outskirts of Valley Forge there are large business parks and shopping malls, so the Park sits like a tranquil oasis amid its urban surroundings. It was a glorious morning, blue skies and crisp early fall air, making for incredibly enjoyable cycling.

The bikepath is actually part of the route, and after viewing Washington’s headquarters, we mounted our trusty steed and headed west. Still traveling mainly in a westerly direction, we continued on the arc that was to take us towards the west side of Chesapeake Bay, and on to our respite in Washington DC. Most of the day was spent in rural areas. While this part of Pennsylvania seemed lush, the foliage was less thick than what we encountered in New England. After each climb, we were afforded a good view of the landscape, and a few miles of rolling hill country. Then we would descend into a river or creek valley, only to begin the climbing process again.

Even though we were physically stronger after nearly 3 weeks of steady riding, our pace was slowing. While we had averaged nearly 10 miles per hour in New England, we were now at 8. This may not sound like much of a difference, but if you’re riding 50 miles a day, it means that it takes at least another hour of saddle time to go the same distance. We had been told to except more hills in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, and indeed it was true to form.

We spent the best part of 3 days riding through the productive farmlands of the area. We also had a chance to learn more about the people who lived there. Their story is not unlike others we have encountered since our trip began; people being persecuted for their beliefs setting out to the New World to live and worship as they saw fit.

Although Lancaster Amish are Pennsylvania Dutch, all Pennsylvania Dutch are not Amish. The Pennsylvania Dutch are natives of Central Pennsylvania, particularly Lancaster and its surrounding counties. Unlike the Amish, they are not all one religion. Instead, their common bond is a mainly German background (Pennsylvania Dutch is actually Pennsylvania Deutsch, or German). They also have Welsh, English, Scottish, Swiss, and French ancestry. The Amish have their roots in the Mennonite community. Both were part of the early Anabaptist movement in Europe, which took place at the time of the Reformation. The Anabaptists believed that only adults who had confessed their faith should be baptized, and that they should remain separate from the larger society. Many early Anabaptists were put to death as heretics by both Catholics and Protestants, and many others fled to the mountains of Switzerland and southern Germany. The Amish and Mennonites both settled in Pennsylvania as part of William Penn's "holy experiment" of religious tolerance. The first sizable group of Amish arrived in Lancaster County in the 1720's or 1730's. Here began the Amish tradition of farming and holding their worship services in their homes rather than churches.

The Amish are a private people who believe God has kept them together despite pressure to change from the modern world. They are a religious group who live in settlements in 22 states and Ontario, Canada. The oldest group of Old Order Amish, about 16-18,000 people live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and stress humility, family, community, and separation from the world.

Old Order Amish women and girls wear modest dresses made from solid-colored fabric with long sleeves and a full skirt (not shorter than half-way between knee and floor). These dresses are covered with a cape and apron and are fastened with straight pins or snaps. Men and boys wear dark-colored suits, straight-cut coats without lapels, broadfall trousers, suspenders, solid-colored shirts, black socks and shoes, and black or straw broad-brimmed hats. Their shirts fasten with conventional buttons, but their suit coats and vests fasten with hooks and eyes. They do not have mustaches, but they grow beards after they marry. The Amish feel these distinctive clothes encourage humility and separation from the world. Their clothing is not a costume; it is an expression of their faith.

The farms are well kept and appear to be productive, although we saw a disturbingly large number of them that were slated for public auction. We don’t know if this is the preferred way of selling farmland in this area of the country, but it made us wonder if urban encroachment and sprawl are not too far behind. We passed by a number of dairies , and as you can imagine the smell of manure, both in the barns and in the fields as fertilizer, was pungent and strong. As one of the locals told us, “You know you’re in Lancaster County by the smell.”

This area of Pennsylvania is also the boyhood home of Floyd Landis, the defrocked winner of the 2006 Tour du France. We don’t know if Floyd used performance enhancing drugs or not, but we gained an appreciation for the place where he developed his bicycle hill climbing skills. While the Lancaster valley is relatively easy to ride across, the surrounding hills and mountains are as steep as we have encountered. In fact, it was at the end of our 2nd day in the region when we had to resort to using our lowest, lowest granny gear. Some sadistic individual located their campground in a forest at the top of “Furnace Hill”, and we had not bargained for a 3.6 mile climb at the end of a 50 miler. But you take whatever the road throws at you, and we grunted and gritted our teeth all theway to the top. It teemed down rain that night but we didn’t care. The tent was dry, we were well fed, and tomorrow we’d be crossing the Susquehanna River as we continued to proceed on.