Shady Maple

The park here has a full schedule for the weekend to keep the people entertained.  Today they had an ice cream social and a wagon ride.  When I heard about he wagon ride I visualized a horse drawn wagon with a straw bed in it.  No straw and the device pulling the wagon has 200HP rather than one HP.  They had a few people in the wagon as a tractor pulled it around the campground.

It was hot today, but not as bad as previous days and we decided to take a ride in the Lancaster County countryside and go to a restaurant recommended by my FSILINC.  He and a coworker were there earlier in the week and the bakery really impressed him.

Along the way we enjoyed the beautiful farms and rolling hills of this part of Pennsylvania and the quaint old town/villages along the way.  We saw a number of Amish people in their horse drawn buggies and managed to get this nice shot of two men on their way to market.   It is hard to imagine how these people have been able to continue with this way of life among all the modern trappings of today's world.  

We continued on until we arrived in East Earl where the Shady Maple Smorgasbord restaurant is located.  They also have a market next to the restaurant.  When I say restaurant, think of a huge building the size of a basketball arena or larger.  They have a 40,000 sq ft gift shop on the basement level, a huge banquet room and a restaurant that seats 1100 people at a time.  On a typical Saturday they serve 10-12K customers.  That is thousands of people.  The food section is over 200 ft long and there are 4 distinct sections of food. 

When we arrived there must have been well over 100 people waiting in 4 lines to pay for their meals.  Of course, we picked the slowest line by far and it took almost 30 minutes to pay and be seated.   Our luck continued to be bad and we were seated as far from the food as possible.  I did manage to make two trips through the lines and Gerry made 3, including a final trip to pick up dessert for us.  We enjoyed the meal and didn't even get a chance to sample all of the food available.  If we had, I am sure we would have burst.

Gerry wanted to check out the gift shop and I looked at the Hummels with her and we were amazed how expensive they were.  Gerry had a number of the same Hummels and these were 4-5 times more expensive than what she paid for them.  I sure am glad she got them when she did.

On our way out we drove by a barn where the Amish had parked their buggy wagons and there was an Amish family sitting along a curb.  Gerry snapped a quick picture and we moved on.

 We had a nice leisurely drive back to the campground and loafed around to let the food settle.  Now to get to bed early and have a good nights sleep.

Thanks FSILINC for the heads up on the restaurant.