If you ever find yourself getting up at 5:45am on a Saturday in the dead of winter, you’d better have a damn good reason. Whether or not journeying to Amish country with four friends in search of Pennsylvania’s largest all-you-can-eat smorgasbord is a good reason, well, that remains to be seen, but on February 27th, 2010 it was reason enough for me.

To those of you who aren’t familiar, Shady Maple is something of a mystery wrapped inside a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. Located in the beautifully named Blue Ball, Pennsylvania, it stands alone in the middle of farm country as a seething, roaring tourist facility bent on catering to the wants of every red-blooded, patriotic, sweat-pants-wearing American consumer this side Pittsburgh.

Even for a man with my unbridled enthusiasm, it’s incredibly difficult to portray via blogging just how much of a mindfudge this place really is. Regardless, I’ll attempt to do it here in 34 pictures or less.

Getting up before sunrise on a weekend is no easy task. Thankfully, Shady Maple veteran and great friend Josh Camerote came along for the ride. Being the man responsible for my very first Shady Maple experience almost five years ago, I was relieved to know he was participating in the day’s events.

After a quick pre-breakfast of some o.j and apples, we headed out to pick up the rest of the crew.

Joining us that day were Chris Van Auken (aka CVA), Daniel Pilger (who you might recognize from the infamous garbage plate post I put up about 7 months back) and Chris Powell (who you might recognize from pretty much every pizza and pierhoagie experiment I’ve ever talked about or put up on blogaganoush). A choice group of comrades to crawl through the trenches with, if ever there was one.

With spare change in hand and a GPS system, we set forth on our journey into the belly of the beast that is Pennsylvania Dutch country.

After an hour or so we arrived at our destination: Blue Ball, PA. It was 7:30 in the am. My parking skills were lackluster at best.

Looming high upon a hill, the ominous smorg beckoned us inward. It had been almost two years since I last set foot in that place, during which I vowed n’er to return. And yet there I was, ready to pick my jersey back up off the shelf in the name of weird memories and the almighty shared experience.

The Shady Maple compound is nothing short of ginormous. All told it takes up about 4 acres of land, and contains a full-service farmer’s market, a furniture store, an RV dealership, a gas station, a “goods” store (which consists of Christian-themed patriotic knick-knacks, hardware supplies, welcome mats, windsocks, lawn gnomes, and a myriad of other rural-suburban things) and of course, a massive Pennsylvania Dutch smorgasbord with a 200 foot long buffet line.

In many ways, Shady Maple is laid out like a hospital – it’s decorated like one, too. Tons of thick maroon carpeting, kitschy artwork, gaudy chandeliers and enough potpourri and doilies to make even your Aunt wince. Ahhh…white people.

Once we entered the staging zone, Josh revealed his special smorgasweater.

Thankfully we had made good time on account of getting up at the butt crack of dawn, and had arrived just minutes before the big 8am Saturday breakfast rush.

We bought our breakfast tickets ($11.00 on weekends, $9.00 on weekdays) and proceeded to have ourselves wrangled like cattle into one of the many, many dining areas (I think the place can seat upwards of 50,000,000 people give or take a few).

I requested we get a table in newly renovated dining hall in the back of the building because it’s the biggest, and feels the most like the cafeteria of a convention center.

It was time for the main event: eating breakfast. Luckily Josh and I were experienced enough to know exactly what to go for, and what to pass on. Whether you’re looking for a bread bar with made to order pancakes and french toast, a donut bar, a cereal station, a fruit caddy, a pork wagon, a syrup hutch, a juice bar, an ICEE machine, an ice cream bar, a salad bar (complete with “hot bacon dressing” and “chow chow” as the brochure suggests), or any other kind of bar to facilitate breakfast gorging, Shady Maple has it buried somewhere in it’s 200 foot buffet line.

It even has an egg bar (4 of them to be exact) specializing in omelets and eggs benedict – all fresh and made-to-order by one of their 5,000 bonnet-wearing Pennsylvania Dutch dressed kitchen staff.

“The point today is not to get your money’s worth”, I reminded the crew. “Rather, it’s a chance to eat a quality meal with friends”. With that, we headed out onto the cholesterol superhighway with our stomachs empty and our fingers crossed.

As I rounded the corner to find some cinnamon syrup for my sweet-potato pancakes, a large chocolate donut derailed itself from a nearby plate and rolled past my feet. I stood in awe as it was casually kicked around like a glazed soccer ball for a few moments and then, nothing. It had been consumed by the stampede.

“I just realized something”, Josh said. “Food has no value here…and no one can claim ownership over anything”. He was right. Somebody could have walked right up to my plate and stabbed a fork into my towering pile of eggs-benny, and I wouldn’t have said a thing – I would have shrugged my shoulders and gotten back in line with the rest of the zombies.

Senior citizens, Amish folks, elaborate belt buckles, American flag sweatsuits, church youth groups, fledgling D-school athletes, entire families wearing pants with elastic waistlines – it was all here, and being carted in by the busload to chow down on comfort food. It took all my strength to avert my eyes away from the train wreck and head back to the table.

Breakfast was good. Real good. A few of us went back for modest seconds, but for the next 2 hours we mostly sat around and philosophized about child obesity statistics, the art of people watching, why smorgasbords don’t exist in Ethiopia, Sarah Palin supporters, and how the world is probably going to end very soon.

We then headed to the men’s bathroom lobby to sit on big comfy couches and digest our meals. We also listened to large groups of men take a shit one room over.

Before leaving the compound we paid a visit to the goods store in hopes of a finding a souvenir. While parusing the denim section I noticed a particular stack of dungarees that read “60 x 30″.  Being a 6″6″ man who wears a 33 x 34 size pants, I was intrigued; here was a pair of dungarees for someone with legs almost as long as mine, and yet a waist nearly three times the size. I decided to had to try them on, just to see how they’d fit.

Taking the next logical step, Chris Van Auken came over to try them on with me.

And there you have it: a pair of jeans so unbelievably huge that two full grown men can comfortably fit inside them. It was then I remembered why I vowed never to return in the first place.

The fact that a place like Shady Maple exists can only mean one of two things: 1) America is awesome, or 2) America sucks.

Perhaps it’s both.

Until next time guys, let freedom ring.