We so enjoyed our time at home with family, but the good times traveling must go on! Lisa took us to the airport Thursday morning, the 17th, and just as we were going through security, I heard someone say "Vangie!" and turned around to see Mary Rhodes! Wow! Mary is with The Mortgage Firm and we've done MANY loans together over the years, so it was fun to chat for a couple of moments. She was headed to Texas....
We had an uneventful (though very turbulent) flight back to Detroit via Charlotte, NC, where we had just enough time to switch planes.
So thankful our luggage wasn't lost anywhere, that's always a concern, and what is it about my bag? EVERY.SINGLE.TIME my luggage is searched! So annoying that I pack ever so neatly and get back to a tossed and turned every which way suitcase! Grrrr the notice SAYS it's random, but the last 8-10 times I've flown, my bag has been the "random one!" We had about a two hour drive from Detroit back to Oakwood, OH where we'd left our RV on the farm owned by our FL neighbor/friend, Carol Belau. As we came through Defiance we ate at Dos Amigos, a delicious Mexican restaurant. The sky was so beautiful on our way back.
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Found the RV safe and in great shape as expected. So thankful we did not have to have any concern about it while we were at home.
As I was unpacking, I just happened to glance out the RV window and see this spectacular sunset over the farm. How we are compelled to worship a Creator who paints the skies like this!
Friday, August 18th - we went to Sauder Village, Ohio's largest living history destination. Totally like stepping back in time in this historic village and farm to the 1803-1920's! So enjoyable, especially since the weather today was absolutely perfect. We wandered all around the village where they had period costumed guides in the homes, gardens and community shops.
When we got to the Welcome Center we realized they were having a huge event for the craft of rug hooking. This is a craft I was totally ignorant of, and we just wandered through the display on our way to the Village - wow, very impressed with the art! Imagine the hours of work and the books were selling like crazy. Reminded me of the days I used to go to the cross stitch shows.
This is the schoolhouse - the original one room school was renamed District 16 in honor of the school Erie Sauder attended. Very typical of the type of rural school attended by children in the early 20th century.
This is a little one room church - St. Mark's Lutheran Church. How quaint. The lady after speaking about what life was like back then, went over to the old organ and played Jesus Loves Me, commanding everyone present to sing along. There were several children there, I assume home-schooled kids and they sang with gusto! So cute!
Erie J . Sauder was the founder of the Sauder Furniture companies, currently led by the 2nd and 3rd generations of his family. What a wonderful legacy this wonderful Christian man left. We really enjoyed learning about this great American entrepreneur. He ran the company with such godly principles. Love his success story. Originally it was only church furniture and then of course branched out to all types of furniture.
Erie Sauder began his woodworking career at AGE SIXTEEN!!! Can you imagine? With no electricity, he created a power lathe run by a diesel engine through a system of belts. Just incredible. What an example for the youth of today, but then that's another topic for another day....
One of several woodworking shops - working with jig saws, etc.... amazing for the day!
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Barber Shop was one of the social centers of the community. This shop remains the only licensed barber shop in a historic setting in the state.
In The Tinsmith's Shop, reproductions of 18th and 19th century traditional tinware are created.
Earl was fascinated in Dr. McGuffin's office, looking at the primitive medical instruments and even a hand spinner centrifuge for blood work! One amazing thing was a "tonsil snare" where he'd go on a home visit to remove tonsils. Yikes! I had mine out at age 35 and it was not fun! I cannot imagine how it went back then. He built this office in 1911. I was thinking this might be the original Mrs. McGuffin here. haha Just kidding...
This was all part of the original farm, the barns, the farmhouse, outhouse, and other buildings. Fascinating. I'm often drawn back to this era, thinking how sweet and simple life was, and then when I consider having to go use an outhouse a considerable distance from the main house....not so much!
This is for all my family and friends that own an Instant Pot! THANK GOD!!! Yikes, using one like this would be terrifying!
This is the Grime's Homestead from the 1920's.
Wherever we go, if there's a blacksmith shop, we're always wanting to check it out, because of our son's interest in blacksmithing. We enjoyed watching an artist at work. So Jason, these are for you!
This is the old water powered Grist Mill....as the water rushes over the water wheel, the miller showed us how corn is turned into corn meal.
We had such a lovely day at the Sauder Village. We enjoyed dinner out and had a relaxing evening. Last year, Carol had told us we needed to go to the Cooper Farms store just up the road, but they were closed, so early Saturday morning (the day of Carol's Melon Festival), we made our way down the road to visit this huge farm that raises turkeys and processes the meat.
VERY impressed and bought quite a bit to put in the freezer.
Many of our Florida neighbors live within a few hours of Carol, so they make a practice of coming to this festival most years. It was fun to see and catch up a bit with them and most of them we'll see in October when we return to Florida. If any of you remember my blog from last year when we were here, you'll remember the enormous collection of giraffe's Carol has - well over 800! She catalogs them all, so each one has a number, where it was purchased or given to her, and the person giving the gift. Can you imagine all these? So fun to look over the collection.
Carol took several of us who wanted to go, out into the fields to see firsthand how the melons are grown. Her grandson, Kassidy, drove the tractor and we all enjoyed riding on the trailer, normally used to carry the harvested melons. Such a beautiful day being close to nature on the farm. We so appreciated Carol's hospitality.
This is Carol's lovely home in Oakwood. They also own a florist shop, run by her son Bear and his family. Bear makes sure his mom has beautiful flowers all around the farm!
This is Carol's cutting garden! How cool is it to have flowers available EVERY day for cutting! I'd fill my house with them, as I love fresh flowers. She told me to help myself, so before we leave in the morning, I'm going to take advantage of her offer.
Sunday, we arose to a simply gorgeous day. Bear and Earl were having a laugh about something...
Here's Carol and me, in front of this gorgeous Rose of Sharon plant! Wow, wish we could grow these in Florida!
I don't know what the original purpose of this outbuilding was, but now it is used for family gatherings. What a great place! Every Thursday night, it's open to family and friends, and they all gather here. Can you imagine the memories of Carol's family, her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren? Growing up on this farm means a lot to this family! This afternoon they are hosting a family reunion, so we're heading out in a few minutes, though they even invited us to stay! Wow, I said Carol is the hostess with the mostest!
They loaded us up with watermelons, cantelope, fresh tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and fresh flowers! So blessed!
We left around noon, and had a short drive back over to Middlebury, IN. If you remember, we were here just before we flew back home, and we knew there was more here we wanted to see, so we were excited to get back, and are looking forward to a great week here!
After we got settled, we cut into our yellow watermelon. Y'all - SO yummy and sweet! You just have to "think red!" haha
On our drive, we saw this display of "punch buggies" at a car dealership - how many of you played that game on the road when you were kids? We did and so did our kids and now they're playing it with our grandkids, so I could not resist taking this photo and texting it to Lisa and I told her to show it to the kids, and I said, "Punch Buggy yellow, Punch Buggy blue, Punch Buggy white, Punch Buggy purple, Punch Buggy blue, I WIN!" She said the kids just giggled! We'd played this while we were down there. Justin even emailed me later about it. He thought this was just the "coolest picture ever!"
But we really lucked out, as they say. I actually choose to just thank God for blessing us, as I don't really believe anything is a coincidence, and he blesses us with the most minute details! Our RV neighbor across the way was standing out waiting for the eclipse, and we told him we'd been unable to find glasses. He was a WELDER (can you believe it?) and had some welder's glass and gave us a section of glass to view it through! How cool! So we sat outside and chatted and marveled at what we were seeing. We didn't have anywhere near the experience those that were in the direct path saw. We marveled at our friends and fellow RVers, Barry and Cindy Carey's pictures from Charleston, SC. Wow...but it was super fun for us, anyway, and it was fascinating as the eclipse occurred, how the temperature dropped! Not great photos as they were taken through this section of glass we had.
Cool reflection on the patio by the RV.... see the crescent moon shapes?
Tuesday, we were so excited to go to the Menno-Hof Center to see and hear the Amish-Mennonite Story in Shipshewana. We saw the building and read about it when we were here before but didn't have time to go visit it. I took this from our parking spot. The white "house" is the Visitor Center and then you tour through the red barn. It's huge and extremely well presented and is so informative. We were just fascinated to learn.
All over Shipshewana we saw HUGE and healthy looking ferns! Wow, I'd love to take home some of these!
The Amish are known for their beautiful quilts and this one (while you can't really tell from the photo,) has all the women's hands who made it in the border! Very cool!
If you've ever read much about the Amish, you know they are known for their "community," the way they help each other and care for their own. When the decision was made to have this center full of history and information, they got together and raised this barn in SIX DAYS! Can you believe it?
This Amish gentleman is named John, and he was the friendliest Amish man we've ever run into. Most of them we've found to be very shy, and reluctant to talk to "the English," even though many of them work in restaurants and stores and have to interact with us to some extent. They do not like to have their pictures taken, but I sneaked this in while he was talking to Earl. We asked him all kinds of questions about their ways, and he was very open to answering, and could not have been nicer. I told Earl later, they probably got really tired of all the "English" curiosity, so figured they'd build a center like this and it would hopefully keep us all from bugging them. Ha
The name "Menno-Hof" combines "Menno" after Menno Simons, the leader who brought stability to the early Anabaptists, with "Hof," the German word for farmstead. This center offers a non-commercial setting for visitors to learn accurate information about the life and faith of the Mennonites and Amish who have settled in this part of Indiana.
We watched a multi-media introduction to the Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites). Titled "Good Fences Make Good Community," it gave us an overview of church history from the time of Christ to the 16th-century Reformation.
We were horrified to hear stories of the persecution and hardship they endured. This is a depiction of a 16th century dungeon where Anabaptists were imprisoned, tortured and executed because of their call for a church free from state control.
This is horrible - it's called a "catcher," and was literally used to grab people around the neck ensuring that they could not escape. I can't even imagine!
Another form of torture was this tongue screw - clamped down on the tongue to give a clear message that speaking out about their faith would not be tolerated.
These are several of the engravings depicting the torture.... this is the "catcher."
One common method of torture and execution was drowning.
Another method was frequently used, the cutting off of hands or feet! Awful!
Separating the family was a common ploy to intimidate and terrorize.
This engraving depicts the horror many endured of being burned alive. Makes be cringe just to look at this.
After enduring so much persecution, it caused many Anabaptists to scatter throughout Europe, and is another of the reasons why they split into three groups, the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish.
William Penn invited the Mennonites and Amish to help create a peaceable kingdom in the New World. Their first voyage to the New World in 1683 set in motion successive waves of migrations to America that lasted into the 20th century.
In the "Amish Room," we get a look at the plain clothing style of the Amish. The simplicity and spirituality of their culture and religion.
One of the most striking stories is the story of Dirk Williems from the Martyrs Mirror.
This image became famous in its symbolic richness of the story, where it relays the three most important themes for Mennonite/Amish identity today: Service (reaching out to the unfortunate, Peace (love of your enemies), and Martyrdom (like Jesus who died for us.)
The story relates how Dirk, while fleeing arrest came to water thinly covered with ice. He managed to cross safely, but his pursuer had broken through the ice. Hearing his cries, he found himself in a dilemma. I don't know that I could have made the same decision! He stepped back onto the ice and went and rescued his pursuer, saving his life! Wow. Naturally that man did not want to capture Dirk at that point, but the burgomaster shamed him into remembering his oath to catch the Anabaptists, so Dirk was imprisoned as a heretic, tried and sentenced to death. He was burned at the stake!
One of the more memorable experiences at Menno-Hof was the "Tornado Room." We entered a very small room, maybe 10' square, meant to resemble a basement or tornado shelter. We were "blown" around, hearing the whistle of the winds and viewing the funnel cloud as it proceeded to come right up to us! Yikes. I've never experienced a tornado, and definitely want to keep it that way!
We ate tonight at another Amish restaurant - these people can COOK, let me tell you!
Wednesday, August 23rd - Today is the Shipshewana Flea Market! If you love to travel, you need to include Shipshewana as a destination point! It's a bustling small town with quaint shops, lots of home-style dining, and FULL of hand crafted items, baked goods and whatnot. Home of the midwest's largest flea market, we were utterly amazed at the amount of cars AND horses and buggies there! It's only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Having nearly 900 booths, you can imagine that we walked our legs off! Typical of any flea market anywhere, this one is just on steroids.
Notice the "privacy shield" on the passenger side of these buggies. I guess they don't really enjoy the prying eyes of tourists. Can't say I blame them. Many were open and easier to see, but we saw a lot of these.
Also, a common site, is the Amish on bicycles. Very convenient form of transportation and they were all over...
One of my favorite things about this area is the unending amount of peaceful farms. Easy to recognize an Amish farm, as every building, homes and barns, and any outbuildings are always white. I assume this is in line with their desire for simplicity. And obviously we could spot the buggies in the drive instead of garages and cars seen in the non-Amish farms.
Tonight, we went to the Blue Gate Theatre, for the live musical "The Home Game." Absolutely superb! We were not able to take any photos during the production, but if y'all ever come here, definitely plan to attend one of their many performances. They produce over 80 performances a year, and we were beyond impressed. Afterwards as I read the program, every.single.one of the performers had a degree in performing arts and voice! No wonder they were so good!
Later as we wandered around the beautiful building, we see that they have big names come here, similar to Branson, MO or any other type big tourist attractions. Just a few of the upcoming concerts will be with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Booth Brothers, Mickey Gilley, the Collingsworth Family, the Texas Tenors and many more! If I lived here, I'd be having season passes, that's for sure!
We found a delightful Mexican restaurant after the theater, you know I can't go too long without my Mexican fix! I can't believe we only have one more day here!
Thursday, we woke up to a very chilly day! It was in the 40's last night and will only reach mid 60's today! I promptly turned on my little heater by my feet!
I had seen some stores I wanted to go in today, but as I was scrolling FB, I had a message from my friend, Mary Carpenter, and she urged us to take the Heritage Trail tour, and sent us the link to the details. We were able to download the "tour" and it was really great! You do the driving, but you are directed and accompanied by your own personal tour guide (via technology!) giving you interesting information and facts about where you're going, directing you to the next site, and narrating info on the area. WELL worth taking! So thanks Mary! We really enjoyed our day!
It was late afternoon by the time we finished our 90 mile tour, and I knew the stores closed at 5:00 so we hustled into Shipshewana to get some info on some outdoor furniture I was interested in. One of the Amish gentlemen, finding out we were hesitant due to what would be exorbitant shipping charges, even told us he was coming to Florida this winter, and on his way to Sarasota, where he'll be delivering some other furniture, he would bring it to us! How awesome is that! So we have his info - I need to do some measuring when I get home, and we'll be in touch. One note of interest. We asked how we could possibly communicate since he's Amish, and he rather sheepishly admitted that they use computers for business and he even uses a cell phone! Hmmmm very interesting. What a nice young man! We did note as we drove around the area, it's very common for individual Amish farm owners to have what looks like a telephone booth out by the road on their property. But on the whole, they have resisted many modern conveniences, declining to own cars, radios or TVs and rejecting the use of phones and electricity inside their homes.
We loved our stay in the area, the fabulous food, and scenic farms. So rewarding to experience life in this community, learning more about the beauty and simplicity of the Amish lifestyle.
As always, thanks for traveling with us.... we love your comments and thoughts as we are so far away from home, missing family and friends, but loving every minute of this adventure. Feeling blessed.
