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In a long, lazy line, they trickle down the sun-splattered streets, lugging pillows and suitcases, their farmhouse fashions a kooky counterpoint to this modern oasis of whitewashed homes and wind-blown palm trees.
Welcome to Pinecraft, a little-known getaway for the horse-and-buggy set that defies their somber stereotype.
Here the Amish go deep-sea fishing. They play volleyball and shuffleboard and golf. They cluster at street corners, speaking German and English, their conversations revolving around three essential questions: When did you get here? Where are you staying? When are you leaving?
Kayla Gingerich, an Amish teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, walks the beach in a modest dress and prayer cap, waves from the Gulf of Mexico splashing her bare, tanned feet. "We're real," she says with a beatific smile. "We like the sunshine, too."
"I don't know of any other place like Pinecraft," says Jacob Beachy, bishop of the Martins-Creek West church district just outside Berlin, Ohio. Beachy is the religious leader for 18 New Order Amish families, a third of whom head to Pinecraft each winter.
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