Driving me buggy!

If you've read this blog at all, you've come to realize that I live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. If there's one thing Lancaster is known for, it's the Amish and their unique way of life. They are, for the most part, a relatively quiet people who keep mostly to themselves, unless they need to interact with the "English" for trade or whatnot.

I've known several Amish folks, and the vast majority of them are decent, hard working, peaceful people. The Amish primarily use horse-drawn buggies for long distance transportation (meaning, a few miles or more). It is customary to carefully pass an Amish buggy, but unfortunately, many of the folks who come to this area as tourists, and many who've lived here all their lives, have no idea how to pass them safely.

This afternoon, I was trying to go visit my wife at the hospital, and I was fighting the clock, trying to get there during visiting hours. I had the poor fortune to get stuck behind a lady who decided to follow a buggy for almost a mile. When she finally passed it, she decided to travel far below the speed limit. It took 30 minutes to travel 6 miles, which put me far behind schedule for getting to the hospital, which is two hours away. Since I was riding the scoot and it was cold and windy, I decided to just turn around and head home.

I do love this area, but sometimes the local drivers test the limits of my sanity.

As a note about the above picture, if you are not familiar with the Amish, that buggy is actually not an Amish buggy. In this area, we have Amish, and Old order Mennonites. The Amish use grey buggies, while the black buggies belong to the Mennonites. There are other subtle differences between the two, and there are many many different flavors of Mennonites, of which the Amish themselves are an offshoot. I could fill several pages with explanations of the differences between the two, but I don't really feel like it at this time, and it's not the focus of this blog anyway.