Sun. 9/30/07 ~ Clip-Clopping through the Amish Country

We got up this morning and drove about 38 miles to the town of Hershey, PA. We signed up for a trolley tour of the town which was built by Milton Hershey and his wife Kitty. In addition to the Hershey factory he built housing for the employees and management, gardens, and a school. The Milton Hershey School is a school for approximately 2,000 disadvantaged children from the age of four through 18. The children live at the school and receive an excellent education. If they graduate from the school (about 80% graduate) they will receive up to $77,000 to attend any college to which they are accepted. The majority of the stock from the Hershey Corporation and all of the stock from the Hershey Entertainment Corporation is held in trust to support the school. After the trolley tour we took a little tour through a simulated Hershey factory that shows the process of making chocolate. We drove back to Lancaster County and drove through several miles of the Amish farm country. Since it was Sunday there wasn’t any work going on but we saw lots of families in their buggies going to church. We stopped at the Plain and Fancy Farm for a buggy ride that took us 2 to 3 miles and told us a little bit about the Amish culture. We had a family style dinner at the restaurant and shared dinner with 4 other couple who were had enjoyable tablemates. On the way back to the campground we saw two large groups of young Amish people playing volleyball. One of the groups was at the farm across the street in front of the motor home. The campers next to us, Paul and Helen, had a campfire going and invited us to join them. We sat and visited with them for a couple of hours. They have been coming to the same campground two or three times per year for 16 years and know many of the Amish families in the area. They told us that the group of kids playing volleyball was the youth groups that get together every week at different farms. About 10 PM all the kids started heading for home and there was a steady stream of buggies up and down the road next to our camp site. There is a school right across the street and I am going to see if I can visit the school in the morning.