Return To Amish Country, Part 1

     So, Tom and I decided to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Ohio Amish Country.
    I know, I know. 
    I know that I’ve previously pronounced  Amish Country to be the least hospitable country on the planet  (See post from  7/01/2014).
    Except that I found a Groupon for this nice-looking place, the Berlin Resort,

....which happened to be in Amish Country,

    But on the other hand it advertised a nice-looking pool, killer-looking work-out facility, and -here was the clincher - a movie theater right in the hotel!
   And then it turned out that the place gave a military discount as well so we thought, eh, why not give Amish Country another try?  If we didn’t like it we could spend the weekend in the hotel watching movies, right?
    So we set off early Friday afternoon in the beautiful sunshine that belied the 10-degree temperature outside.
    We picked up U.S. Route 62 where it passed through Gahanna and drove north-east for two hours  over two-lane roads...

past farmland,

               ..woodland,

...and through small Ohio towns,

    ...to the town of Berlin in Holmes County, the heart of Ohio Amish Country.
     Now, though surrounded by lovely farmland and scenic open areas,

  ...the town/tourist section of Berlin (pronounced Ber-lin) is really just a strip of street  lined on either side with stores and shops selling Amish crafts, Amish furniture, Amish quilts,  Amish bonnets, Amish cheese, Amish baked goods, Amish books...you get the idea. 

    But as the weather was bad this weekend the traffic congestion was not what it was the last time we visited on a lovely fall day when you could've sat half the day behind a line of cars and the pedestrian traffic was well nigh impassible with a mighty phalanx of people looking to snag them some Amish stuff to take home and love.
    Anyway, The Berlin Resort was on a hill on the outskirts of town.

The lobby.

Our $110-a-night room, basic but oh, so, clean and comfy.

    After we checked in Tom and I took a once-around the building, which was huge and labyrinthine, all twisting and turning hallways that one could easily get lost in. (The next day I did get lost and had to prevail upon a housekeeper whom I fortunately ran into to guide me back to my room). 
    Tucked about here and there were cozy little sitting spots:

    The hallways smelled new, of fresh-cut lumber, and everything about the place had a clean, simple-but-pleasant look and feel.

    Though there were plenty of amenities:

Pool:

three work-out rooms, the two above plus a free-weights room,

              a barber shop,                                                                        manicure shop,     

                          

massage room,

...a little gift-shop and snack bar,  and if the weather had been nice we could have gone outside and hung around the patio fire pit, gazebo and children's village:

    But in truth I was most intrigued by the prospect of an on-site movie theater.
    Turned out it was a miniature theater that showed 3 movies a day, one at 5 pm, one at 6 pm and one at 8 pm.

    The 5 pm movie is always a 50-minute documentary about the Amish.
    For the other two time slots the hotel has a list of films to choose from and the movies are chosen by guests on a first-come, first-serve basis.  So, for example, on Friday evening by the time we arrived the 6 o'clock film had already been chosen but the 8 o'clock slot was still open, so after looking over the list of movie options  I requested "As Good As It Gets" for the 8 o'clock movie.
    Tom decided to check out the Amish movie - interesting but a bit longish, he thought -  while I stayed in the hotel room and chilled.

Or rather, warmed.  Our room had a
set-your-own-temperature thermostat.  You better believe I fired that bad boy  up!

   
    After the Amish movie we decided to got out and seek some chow.  Of all the offerings of the Berlin Resort, a restaurant is not among them.
    In fact, it seems to me that the whole town of Berlin, for all the tourists it supports, is decidedly short on restaurants. We could find only three along the main strip.
    We opted for one of them, East Of Chicago Pizza,

...which offered a nice pizza and salad bar,

...and paper towels for napkins,

..but best of all for dessert there were these little all-you-can-eat iced cinnamon rollesque things.

OMG, I couldn't stop eating them!

    But considering that I about ate my weight in cinnamon roll thingies, the meal was a pretty good deal.

And they gave you mints with the bill.

    After dinner we got back to the hotel just in time for our movie, which we shared with about half a dozen more viewers.  Tom and I took the front-row seats. 

   "As Good As It Gets"  was a great movie, a two-kleenexer  starring Jack Nicholson as an obsessive-compulsive misanthrope who in spite of himself gets thrown into a relationship with two unlikely people.
    I could get easily used to watching my movies in a spot like this one.