Amish Country (Part 2)

Saturday (Continued)

Our first stop on our Amish country visit was the Farmstead Restaurant in downtown Berlin. This is probably one of the more popular restaurants in the area, frequented by Amish and tourists alike.

The Farmstead Restaurant.

After eating a delicious breakfast of eggs, potatoes, bacon, gravy and biscuits, and this awesome peanut butter condiment spread substance, we continued our adventure and drove out to a place called Wendell August, where they make ornaments and other items out of metal in house.

Sometimes they have a local craftsman in the shop (just not during a level 1 snow emergency).

Sarah next to the worlds largest Amish buggy!

Our next stop on the trip was to a wonderful place known as Heini's Cheese Chalet. It was a cheese, jerky, and fudge lover's paradise.

Cheese!

More cheese!

Head cheese!...sorry got carried away with the exclamation marks. This is actually gross.

Where they make the cheese! Probably not the Head Cheese though, because it is gross and probably comes from a moldy cave or something.

Cheese timeline!

This is a dark portion of history known as the Great Cheese War of 1695. The man in the bottom right is trying to save the cheese from the evil attacking army. It has been stricken from the history books though, so you won't find any record of it.

After learning about cheese and the bloody war that occurred to ensure its survival we headed to a place called Schrocks Amish Farm. In the summer time there are all sorts of activities to be had, but in the winter it is limited to the shops in the area, which are still pretty neat.

There are all sorts of odds and ends at the Craft Mall....

....including these small houses for gnomes and such.

Then there is the Antique Mall, which is basically the Craft Mall, but older.

On the other side of the "Farm" there was a pet supply shop/leather store all rolled into one...

....where there was an unlimited supply of cowboy hats and boots. There was also this small puppy that Sarah wanted to take home.

Our next destination on our list was a place called Lehman's Hardware, or as I like to call it Amish Walmart. It was filled to the brim with everything you could ever possibly need and some things that you may have thought didn't even exist anymore.

It was very expansive!

They had books.

They had carved wood.

They had stoves.

You could also eat in a jail cell, you know, if you wanted to do that.

Our last stop of the day was to the Perrenial Winery. The trip there was a treacherous one for a 4 wheel drive SUV, I can't imagine trying to tackle it in a horse and buggy.

Not much to look at on the outside...

...but the inside was cozy.

We ended up sitting at the table by the window since people were already gathered around the fireplace.

We had a bottle or Rose wine and a (way too big) pizza.

As you can see we enjoyed the pizza and wine very much (we ate the whole thing...not proud of that). It was a good end to a very snowy day in Amish Country. After we were done we headed back to tree house.

To be continued...