Day 2: Lenox, MA to Lancaster, PA (168 miles)
Saturday, 15 October 2005
Last updated 20 Oct 2005

1. Covered bridge at Sheffield, MA	2. Salisbury, CT	3. Chaiwalla	4. With Erik, Mary & Mark of Chaiwalla	5. Mark's ceramic work
6. Covered bridge at West Cornwall	7. West Cornwall covered bridge	8. Stone Wall Dairy	9. Sells REAL milk	10. On the honour system
11. Moo ...	12. Finally with the top down	13. Staff at Stoltzfus Amish restaurant	14. Served me this Amish spread

More spectacular scenery continuing south on Route 7 into Connecticut. The [1] covered bridge at Sheffield, MA (I think) is under reconstruction ... but will I ever get a photo that's not in the rain? At the cute and picturesque "white-picket-fence" town of [2] Salisbury, Connecticut is a [3] little tea shop with the unlikely name of Chaiwalla (which means tea vendor in Hindi, which in India would be a roadside stall or even cart), at One Main Street (860-435-9758). The [4] staff includes no Indians, but the owner Mary has travelled extensively, including in India, and decided to name her tea shop with the Hindi term. The very international and friendly staff includes Erik from Holland, and Mark Rowntree from England (he is a ceramic artist, by the way, and the [5] large and beautiful flower pot is one of his creations!). I had excellent Silvertips tea from Tamil Nadu (very well prepared and did not have to be reheated!), but had to turn down the tasty-looking desserts that Mark insisted I should try. Very friendly people, and Mary wouldn't even let me pay for my tea ... it will bring me good karma for the trip, she said.

And indeed it did! No sooner had I left Chaiwalla than the sun came out (after over a week!) and I continued on my way amid more splendid fall foliage, farmlands, and covered bridges, including the [6,7] famous one at West Cornwall.

Have you ever had real milk? I mean straight from the udders of the cow? Well, a sign to that effect outside a dairy farm flashed by, so I spun around and went in to [8] Stone Wall Dairy (332 Kent Road, Rte 7, Cornwall Bridge, CT 06754, 860-672-2759, 860-868-2371). No farmers in overalls around (I guess they were hard at work), but I [9] bought some milk which you take out of the refrigerator (OK, so it wasn't straight from the udders of the cow ...) and [10] put your money in the box. The [11] car liked it too, and insisted on being set free, so [12] on a turnoff alongside the picturesque Housatonic river, we finally got the top down for the first time on this trip.

Well, I wanted to make it to Lancaster County, PA (Pennsylvania Dutch country), so I took the Interstate for the first time across New York State (sorry, New York State ...), drove through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in Pennsylvania, since I wanted to get to Intercourse.

They official story is that Intercourse, PA was "named for the intersection, or intercourse, in the town," but I don't really think so. After all, it could hardly have been the first intersection of two roads in the region. I think those Amish of yore, despite their frugal ways and stern looks, had a better sense of humour and a fuller expression of their desire to "live naturally" than they are given credit for. That's perhaps why the restaurants that serve Amish food all close at 8 pm, but I got to [13] Stoltzfus Farm Restaurant at 8:02 pm (with the help of the woman on the right over cellular phone) and they served me [14] this sizeable spread of traditional Amish food. My waitress (woman on the left) kept wanting to feed me more, but I could not even finish what they gave me. Amish food is somewhat German: pickled cabbage, sausage, friend chicken (OK, maybe that's not German), potatoes, pasta reminiscent of spatzle, and the famous Shoo Fly pie. Not for the low-carb, low-fat, diet, unless you work hard in a farm all day long, and somewhat heavy for me, but very tasty and well prepared, and most of the ingredients come from their farms.

And speaking of farms, at the suggestion of one of the places I called for a room (they were full) to "call Florence, she may have something," I found my way to the Olde Stone Guesthouse farm (610-593-5572, 1599 Swan Road) in the village of Atglen, PA 19310. What a setting! It was a full moon night, 200 acres of fields all around, two horses nervously prancing in their corral just a few feet away from the house, the moonlight  glistening off the coat of the white one, not a sound other than the movement of the horses and the rustling of the leaves ... All this, and a very comfortable room in the elegant 18th century stone farmhouse. More on the Olde Stone Guesthouse farm in tomorrow's report.

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