Amish Country in Indiana

We took these pictures when we visited Amish Country near Nappanee, Indiana. There is a replica of a working farm with all of the out buildings. The Amish provide as many of their products as they can so as not to rely on others-the grocery store,etc.

The state taxed a house determined by the number of closets. Therefore, the Amish hung their clothes on pegs around the room. They make all of their clothes-very plain and only solid colors using the same patterns.

 Their farms have dairy cows, chickens, beef cows, horses, ducks,etc. These animals provide their food or help with chores.  The Amish do not have electricity in their homes and they travel in horse and buggy.

  

The Amish children use this to learn how to saddle up the horses. They had very simple toys that usually had a learning purpose.

They painted the bottom of the fruit trees white to ward off bugs.  They also put maple syrup in cans on the trees to attract bees for pollination. 

The one room schoolhouse was also on the farm property.  The children only go to school through the 8th grade. Other buildings on the farm were the smokehouse, the root cellar, the blacksmith shop and huge barns. The Amish usually have many children to help with running the farm.   They still make their own butter and wash their clothes without electrical devices.  The Amish meet with about 20 other families taking turns in their homes every other Sunday for worship.  Each of these groups elect a bishop for their group. You can tell the married men because they don' t shave after they get married. The women stay at home and raise the children, but we saw young girls who had not married working in the RV manufacturers. Now many of the Amish provide the cabinets and other word working for the camper and RV manufacturers. They have to wear the white bonnets on their heads and now alto of the younger Amish ride bicycles for traveling from place to place.  The roads had larger shoulders for the horse and buggies to travel.  The buggies now have tail lights for safer travel. The different towns we visited near this area were. Shipshewana, Middlebury, Howe, and LaGrange. These are in western Indiana. 

On this farm they had converted one of the barns to a huge restaurant. They serve foods typically eaten by an Amish family. It is served family style. We had Navy bean soup and cabbage slow and homemade pickles and homemade bread as an appetizer.  Then for the main part of the meal, they served green beans, mashed potatoes, dressing, noodles, turkey and roast beef, and you could choose dessert.  I had chocolate pie and Jeffrey had apple pie and ice cream.

The Round House is also on the property and is used as a theater. Several times a year actors come in and play in various plays. 

Before I go I have to tell you to visit Das Dutchman Essenhaus. This is a restaurant near Middlebury. Country Amish cooking, buffet style.  Great food!  There are also gift shops on the grounds. 

A work in progress

Hey, I think I figured out how. To upload pictures from my tablet. However, I am limited to how many pictures I've taken from my tablet. We've always used Jeffrey's phone. For some reason I haven't been able to pull pictures from Jeffrey's phone lately and I haven't been able to share with you in a while. I don't know what Jeffrey is doing different with the pictures he has on his phone and why I can' t pull them on here. I want to learn more about the cloud.  I'll keep practicing. We are in Kentucky now.  I still need to tell you about Indiana.

Marquette, Michigan

Marquette, Michigan is located at the top of the Upper Peninsula, but not the highest point. It is a big city located on Lake Superior. We were only 16 miles away when we camped in Gwinn, Michigan. The city is quite vibrant with beautiful parks. We took a picture of a young girl who had a rope tied between two trees and she was practicing walking on a balanced beam. Another picture is of a huge structure in the water where ships load and unload iron ore. We also rode out to Prestique Island-another pretty park. Some of the architecture was beautiful. It looked very French- made with sandstone rocks and domes on top. City Hall and a Catholic Church to name a few.

This sailing vessel was for hire.  We saw it out sailing on Lake Superior with it's three sails.  Quite spectacular! 

 That's Joye, Charles Irons and me walking towards one of the inner city parks. We would leave our RV s parked at the campground and travel out to the various sites we want to visit.

Picture Rocks

While up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan we stayed in a small campground with all hookups in Gwinn, Michigan. It was $10 a night. The weather has been in the 60s with spotty showers on a few days. It is windy most days in Michigan. Wow! Some summer weather! You should see all of the ATV and snowmobile trails leading off through the woods.  I love all of the green trees. Lots of Christmas trees grown up tall. Although we can tell it has been dry throughout Michigan. I was surprised to see oil well horses(I will refer to them as) drills in the fields of Michigan as you see in Texas, but I wasn't able to get a picture. You will also see farmland, hilly in places and flat land in other places. They also have capped off natural gas in some of the fields. Of course there are many different kinds of minerals found in the rocks.  I have added pictures of what they call Picture Rock. We took a 2 1/2 hour tour out from Munising, Michigan onto Lake Superior to see them. There are over 42 miles of coastline on the northern side of Lake Michigan that portrays these cliffs.  The cliffs are over 100 feet high and the colors or pictures depicted on them are caused from glacial upheaval and erosion over the 10s of thousands of years. To give you an idea of how big Lake Superior is, we were told it's the size of South Carolina. I have no idea how big Lake Michigan is because we have driven on highway #2 across the upper peninsula from east to west and back again and north and south beside it for miles and miles. We ddecided not to travel back down to get to Indiana through Wisconsin because we didn't want the hassle of passing around Chicago. Another time.

All of the colors depicted on the rocks are from the different minerals-iron ore, copper, magnesium, calcium, iron oxide,etc.  You may also notice the color of Lake Superior-a beautiful blue-green almost like the colors of the waters in the Carribean. I was also very surprised that all of the shores in the different areas we visited of Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior were very clean.  However, our guide told us they were getting the fish back because they have had a problem with Lamprey(a parasite fish that attached itself to the fish and kills them.)  There were three beautiful waterfalls and you may be able to see where some of the rock formations have broken off. We even saw many hikers up on paths at the top.  Swimmers were even in the water and lots of kayakers were paddling around the cliffs. The outside temperature was 69 degrees and I'm sure the water temperature was even colder. In one of the pictures you can see a boat, like the one we traveled on. It held 150 people and as many as four boats would go out on as many as 5 trips a day. But you have to consider they can only work in the summertime. Inside the gift and ticket shop they had pictures of the waterfalls in the winter and they lookedlike frozen curtains.  That reminds me, I don't remember if I mentioned, we saw pictures of Lake Huron in the winter and they travel across the frozen lake to Mackinaw Island. I believe it was 16 miles across and of course, with no bridge, the fulltimers have to wait for the lake to freeze or fly to get supplies from the mainland in the winter. If you like the blustrying cold, as one of our waitresses said, there are many outside winter sports to partake. Oh, I also wanted to tell you, they eat what they call pasties up here. That is meat and vegetables baked wrapped in a pie crust. We didn't try them, but I bet they are good.

This is the oldest lighthouse on Lake Superior that is even older than the township of Munising. At one time the lighthousekeeper his wife and their 11 children lived in the lighthouse. I think this lighthouse was located on Grand Island and there are no bridges over there, but there are a few homes-some cute log cabins that have no running water, no sewer, and no electricity.

This is the Up North Restaurant located about a mile from Gwinn. Just to let you know, Munising is about 37 miles from Gwinn, Michigan where our campground was located.I also, wanted to tell you, on the way back from Munising, a bear crossed the four-lane highway. Well, anyway, I got to see a bear.  Of course, a deer ran out in front of Charles Irons' truck when we were driving back from Sleeping Bear Dunes. It broke the headlight and dented the driver's side door. Lucky it is still driveable and no one was hurt. However, I wanted to let you know there are all kinds of wildlife-stuffed that is, in the rangers Welcome Center for Sleeping Beat Dunes. A must see when you visit around Traverse City, Michigan.

More Sault St. Marie Locks

I've added more pictures of our trip to the Sault St. Marie Locks. If you notice the water marks on the sides of the locks, it shows the height the water raises the boat to before you can move into Lake Superior because of the difference in heights between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. On the way back to Lake Huron through the lock our boat was lowered.  The first lock was opened in 1855.  There is no cost to pass through the locks. I also have a picture of a steel mill over in Canada.  It uses coal from the coal mines in West Virginia and iron ore from Michigan.