Amish Country

I have been fascinate with the Amish for a very long time. Maybe it started when I took up quilting. Not sure but I found some Amish books at the library and my interest grew.  I’ve probably read 100 books about the Amish life. 

I’ve always been curious to see it in person. Most of the books I’ve read were about the Pennsylvania Amish, but the Indiana Amish were closer. I did some research and suggested to Mike a trip to check it out. He was up for a visit.

I suggested we try out a car audio tour called the “Heritage Trail”. According to the internet (and I believe everything I read on the internet) it’s easy, it’s interesting, and it’s free. 

We got off the highway at Elkhart and stopped at the visitors center and got all the info we needed (and then some) , plus the USB for the tour.. 😃

Pamphlet from all the towns

It was so good. We spent the first afternoon taking the east side of the loop. Took us about 3.5 hours going thru and learning history of the territory and seeing some Amish farms. They have stops along the way for special sightseeing interests. We passed thru Shipshewana a town that my neighbor said we had to visit, especially the flea market there. His company sells his glue to all the Amish woodworkers and knows the area well.

We did get to see the quilt garden where all the flower beds are quilt blocks. 

I wish we had the room to plant me one

We saw Amish on bikes and came upon many buggies. The tour emphasized the caution of the buggies. 

Not supposed to take their picture

As we got out of the towns and on to rural roads we saw more Amish farms - they are all white with usually an extension on the house or another smaller house close by. For the grandparents.

There was horse manure in the roads and the roads were pretty ruff and noisy from the damage from horses hooves.

Day 2 we were off to the flea market. It has 700 vendors over 40 acres. We had our walking shoes on. I wanted to see it all. It was a little disappointing - so much commercial stuff.

So much to see

I did find me a quilt bag and some quilt block coasters. 

Buggy parking

It amazed me how the horse (all were beautiful) just stood there waiting for their owners. That was everywhere we went.

Couldn’t pass the quilts shops. They were not hard to find.

One had a manure station where people could shovel manure to take home for their gardens. No it didn’t smell. People were there taking some shit.

We stopped at an Amish cafe for lunch which had really good food. We sat next to Amish women who were there enjoying lunch. They were speaking Dutch. Interesting to me. 

Made a quick stop at the Yoder  Popcorn shop - I knew that Amish treasure 2 things Coffee and home grown popcorn. We bought both there.

We then started on the second half of the Heritage tour. It took about 3 hours. You can do the tour in one big loop, but Mike and I were staying in Goshen which was pretty much half way in between the towns. Doing it in two days we weren’t sitting all day in the car. I enjoyed this half more, maybe because we were deeper into Amish life and/or maybe because I wasn’t driving. I loved every minute. 

Mike and I both enjoyed this getaway. After spending most of the summer waiting for doctor appointments or waiting for test results we needed this trip and we both had a really good time.