No Electricity? No problem.

The Smucker Family Home

I just had the most incredible weekend of my life. I was fortunate enough to stay with an Amish family with 4 of my friends/teammates over this past weekend. We managed to arrange this through the coordinator of host housing for the Tour de Millersburg. We were a bit nervous about the experience...we wanted to be sure that we behaved properly, that we were courteous and that we didn't put the family out too much by our being there.

We arrived in Millersburg around 3 pm on Friday. Anna Mary met us as soon as we pulled up with her 18 year old daughter and a few younger children and grandchildren in tow. Several of the other children were busy running in and out of the barn doing their daily work with the cows, horses, and chickens. Anna Mary is an amazing woman. She has ten children of her own and 6 grandchildren. In fact, the day before we got there, her daughter gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL little boy that we got to see Saturday night. Needless to say, it had been a busy week at the Smucker house prior to our arrival!!!

Once we had all arrived, we went out for a preview of the road race course. It was a beautiful night and we had a great ride. Upon getting back to the house, dinner was being prepared. Dinner included hot dogs, chicken corn noodle soup, and amazing jalapeno poppers made over an open flame. It was delicious!!

We spent some time around the fire pit outside chatting with the family and getting to know everyone. It was really nice to chat with them. They are so open to telling us about their lives, their traditions, their history, and themselves, I feel like we were really lucky to have such a chance to glimpse this life. And even more interesting to me was their interest in us and our lives. Anna Mary went to great lengths to find out what we did, whether or not we were married, whether or not we had kids, etc. It made us feel great to know that they wanted to know as much about us and our lives as we wanted to know about them!

We went to bed early, knowing that we had to get up early for the Time Trial the next morning. When we woke up, we were treated to an amazing breakfast of whole wheat pancakes, fried eggs, toast, juice, coffee, fresh milk, and fresh peaches. Yum, yum, super yum.

That night, we got the chance to go on a buggy ride to visit their daughter (and brand new mom) up the street and to visit Anna Mary's sister around the corner - who was also hosting a few cyclists. Anna Mary's sister was housing one female cyclist named Kat and two men who became known simply as "The Doctor" and "The Comedian." Pretty funny! After our buggy ride, we sat around the fire and ate S'mores and talked about all kinds of things. My favorite was David Ray's comment about the Philadelphia Eagles "going to the dogs." Hehe! Very funny guy!

The next morning, David Ray and Naomi (Jonas and Anna Mary's daughter) made us a huge breakfast and got ready for their own big day. Sunday's race came up to their house and made a right turn between the two Smucker barns. So, this basically meant that all of the Smucker family, friends, and nearest relations came to David Ray and Naomi's house for the day. The kids spent most of their time in the swimming hole - jumping up on the fence each time we came by to yell their heads off! We got to meet a few more friends that morning, as we enjoyed watching the men race by a few times before heading to our own race.

Another hard day in the saddle was rewarded when we got back to the house for the last time. Jonas had made some homemade vanilla ice cream that was incredible and the perfect way to cool down after a HOT race. We were all pretty sad to head out that evening. We felt (like the women who stayed there last year, I know) as if we had really been welcomed into an amazing family for the weekend. We really hope to make it back to the race and to the Smucker house again next year. Oh, and to the girls who stayed last year...no worries...Naomi and David Ray agreed to house y'all so that we can ALL stay there in 2010!!! How amazing is that?!

Let me know what else you'd like to know. I'd be happy to share more stories - I feel like all I talked about was food...and there was so much more to this than that!