Yesterday we left Canada behind us, crossing the border in New York State around Buffalo and followed Lake Erie south. We took a short detour into the city of Erie, but it all looked very depressed and dowdy so we quickly left. These long trips (we were in the car some 6 hours) are when we are trying to catch up with school work. It is fair to say that home schooling from inside a van is challenging – our only consolation is that Jack and Emily are getting plenty of education from the various places we are visiting. Our
destination is Berlin in Holmes County, Ohio. The countryside changes dramatically as we approached Berlin, with rolling green hills, with fields full of cattle and other livestock. We pull over in Brewster, OH to visit the Big Cheese Shoppe (675 South Wabash Avenue, Brewster) which has a great selection of cheese, all of which you can taste – and also ice cream. We of course love our ice cream so indulging our passion was de rigeur. Around 5pm we finally reach our destination, Coblentz Cabins in Berlin. We had the most marvellous log cabin, which reminded us once again how much we’d like to own a log cabin one day. This cabin also had the added attraction of a basement with a pool table which the kids absolutely adored.
Our main purpose of coming to Berlin was that it is in Holmes County which is where there is the largest density of Amish in the USA. There are some 32,000 in this area; together with Mennonites they make up 80% of the population. The Hoblets senior members had long had an interest in understanding more about the Amish culture so put this stop over on the travel schedule. We took our first stop at the Amish Heritage Center in Berlin. The main feature is "Behalt" ( from the 
German “to keep or remember"), a 10 foot x 265 foot cyclorama illustrating the heritage of the Amish and Mennonite people from the Anabaptist beginning in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525 to the present day. This was painted by Heinz Gaugel, a German artist, over a number of years. It is truly stunning and shows the persecution of the Anabaptists (those believing in adult baptism) and escape to the United States. We were given a very information tour by one of the Amish brothers, who then went onto give us a tour of a preserved school house and barn. This gave us a chance to ask some of the questions we had been dying to ask about Amish culture, which is still largely based around farming. They still choose to live simply, evidenced by the manual farm tools (you do see the occasional tractor) and washing drying on the lines in the gardens (no tumble dryer here). There is a lot to be said for this lifestyle and its lack of complication.After the Behalt tour we just relaxed in and around the area, taking in another cheese factory and a bakery (to assist our ever expanding waist lines!!!). We drove down to Millerburg, but this was not really worth the time. So finally we just settled to chill out around Berlin. It is such a peaceful place – probably due to the presence of the Amish and Mennonites – and it is just as well as the Amish in their horse and carriages tend to slow the pace down (it would give a New York taxi driver apoplexy to drive around here).
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