Amish Education

As I may have mentioned before, we had intended to go into Pennsylvania and find an Amish settlement as I have been fascinated by the culture. Quite by accident this morning, we discovered we were actually very near to an Amish settlement right there in Indiana where we were. So we went down a couple county roads and off the main interstate to a little town called Shipshawanee Indiana. Later we went on down the road to Topeka, Indiana to another settlement.
Let me tell you, this was such an experience. It was incredible. The weather was miserable.......mis....er......able ! It was so hot and muggy that it almost hurt to breathe. But we stopped off at the first trading post we found. After getting inside, we found out it had nothing to do with the Amish people, but the lady told us about the flea market just about a mile down the road. So off we went. It was a huge thing with dozens and dozens of vendors. Some were Amish, some were not. We walked around for a while and went in and out of the vendor booths. Having heard before we got there that the Amish people do not like to have their picture taken, we were very discreet with our cameras. I had so many questions I wanted to ask some of the ones I spoke with but didn't get too inquisitive so as not to offend them. I did speak with one lady (not Amish) who seemed to know a lot about them. She said that the ladies do not have any buttons on their clothes. The men do have buttons on their shirts though. Not sure the reason why. The ladies keep their dresses together with straight pins down the front and a sash around the waist. They all wear the small white caps and the mean wear the round type straw hats. They travel exclusively either by bicycle or by horse and buggy. We saw sooooo many of the horse and buggies it was so much fun! They travel down the road just at a quick trot and have the same right of way as an automobile. They are licensed and have rear view mirrors and reflectors on the back in 4 places. The front of the buggy is completely enclosed with windows that can be opened or closed in case of bad weather.
It is a really crazy site to see so many of them just traveling down the road.
We had lunch at an Amish restaurant. The young girls waiting tables would come to wait on you, then return to their table in the corner of the room. There they would sit until something they needed to do. There were about 6-8 of them and they would all sit together until they had to get up and do something. Their steps were very measured.
Amish tradition calls for the young men to be clean shaven until they are married. At that point, they begin to grow what will become the long beard of the elders. They all dress alike and the ones we had interaction with were very friendly and very warm.
The pictures we have are not the best, but as I said, they do not like cameras so we had to be as discreet as possible, thus not always getting good pictures.
We thoroughly enjoyed our day among the Amish. In the town of Topeka Indiana they were having a livestock auction and there were 30-40 buggies parked across from the auction barn. The horses were tied up at a hitching post just like in the old west.
After leaving the Amish settlements, we drove a circuitous route to get to our destination for the night, Columbus Ohio. Thank God for our GPS lady or we would never have made it through that country!

Note to Jim and Gail: Thanks again for our lady, she's been a Godsend!

Note to Todd: Thanks for all the comments, we really appreciate it very much. You are right, Wayne and I do not fit the profile of terrorists!

Note to Todd and Lisa: Alright you two !!!! ;)

Note to Lisa: Send me your email address, I didn't bring it with me and you know how my memory is.... ;)

Note to Allan and Jane: Welcome aboard our blog, thanks for reading!!!

We were very impressed with Indiana. The land was scenic and the farms and farmhouses were neat and well maintained. The entire experience in Indiana was a positive one. We crossed over into Ohio midday today and..........hmmmm not so much! With all due respect to anyone from Ohio, we are just not impressed with what we've seen yet. It's a bit trashy and not so clean. Lima Ohio was actually really bad. We just went right on through!

Tomorrow we plan to have about a 4-5 hour drive to Cass West Virginia, home of the railroad that Wayne is modeling right now. We are real excited to finally get to see it. Not sure if we will be able to stay right in Cass, I guess it's a really small place and not a lot of lodgings to choose from. We will find something though.

After Cass, we plan to turn West and head back in the homeward direction. We plan to go back via Kansas this time so I can see where Wayne's family is from. Then we are going back through Yellowstone again. It was just that kind of experience, we want to see it again. I think we may go across to Oregon and come home via the coastal route to our beautiful San Francisco, hopefully sometime around the 11-12 of October.

Love to All
Wayne and Colleen


p.s. while typing this, a HUGE thunder storm has started. Wow, I haven't heard thunder like this for a long time. The rain is pounding our window. There is a heavy wind blowing too. We just got back from having dinner about 45 minutes ago, guess we got back under cover just in time. Not to worry, we are in a very solid large hotel and just fine.