Meandering Around Michiana

As we drove around the South Bend area, we noticed advertising signs for "Michiana" and realized that somewhere a marketing person had created the name to describe the area bordering on the two states. We've enjoyed our stay here - South Bend has much to offer and the surrounding countryside is intriguing. We spent a day visiting the communities of Nappanee, Middlebury, and Shipshewana, all located in the center of Amish country. All are picture-postcard pretty, but Shipshewana has to be the "Disneyland" of the Amish. A large farm/learning center offers tours, there are rides in Amish buggies, music festivals, and of course, stores. Over 100 offerAmish furniture, Amish food, Amish produce.....everything Amish. The streets are chokes with tourist cars and horse-drawn buggies, and you have to be careful where you walk; apparently the horses aren't potty-trained. We stopped at a meat and cheese store and were treated to a huge cooler offering dozens of varieties of smoked cheeses at reasonable prices. We loaded up (the smoked hot pepper cheese is amazing!) on cheese but skipped the meats except for smoked bacon (meat prices weren't quite so reasonable). Surprisingly, we were in the checkout line behind an Amishman, while an "English" girl with studded cheeks and nose ran the register. As you wander around Amish country, you see all types of conflicting behavior. Undecorated buggies with wooden and steel wheels (old order), buggies with rubber wheels, lights, and orange panels (new order), are all mixed together. On one corner we watched an Amish farmer mow hay with a team of horses, while driving by was another Amish farmer driving a tractor and pulling a power mower. We passed houses where Amish women, complete with bonnet, were mowing the lawn with a gas-powered mower. Sometimes you see an interesting mix; in this picture of the Amish farmer spraying his field you can see that the horses are pulling the wagon, and the wagon axle powers a drive shaft to power the spray mechanism. Besides the farms and stores, the Amish also work at factories; we saw a number of them when we toured the Newmar RV plant a few years ago, with beards and hats, working next to non-Amish. It's an area of interesting diversity, and for a fascinating look at Amish youth and their coming of age, we recommend the video "The Devil's Playground", available on Netflix. There's also an NPR feature on the documentary here.
If you watch college football, then you know that South Bend is the home of Notre Dame University, and we took a short drive around the university to see the sights. The local news announced that the university recently surpassed it's fund-raising goal of $1.5 billion....yes, billion. Those poor students must have sold a LOT of candy bars.
On a wonderfully cool and breezy day we took a drive north to the shores of Lake Michigan and the town of St. Joseph. There's a large sandy beach on the lakefront, a tree-lined park on the bluff above, and a pretty shopping area. We enjoyed walking along the bluff and exploring the downtown shops. It was the kind of day that makes our lifestye so special.
We're off to the Amana Colonies in Iowa - come back and visit!

Exploring Northern Indiana

As we slowly travel westward, we've decided to spend a week visiting the recreational vehicle capital of the world, Elkhart, Indiana, along with South Bend and the surrounding region. It's a pretty area, with fields of corn and soybeans broken by hardwood forests and small lakes. We're staying in a very nice park in Niles, Michigan, just across the Indiana line, and along with exploring, we're catching up on fixing the little things that crop up on a home that does 60 MPH over rough roads. Our first visit was to the Recreational Vehicle/Motor Home Hall of Fame Museum, housed in a beautiful new building right off the interstate highway and with big-rig parking if you're just passing through. Although we tend to think that the building of RVs started with the iconic Winnebago, we found that as soon as the automobile was built, people wanted travel trailers to pull behind them. Especially interesting was this 1913 travel trailer. The workmanship was beautiful, and the interior, with it's hardwood floors and cabinets was stunning even after all these years. There were also a number of "house cars", the first motor homes, and this 1930's "Tennessee Traveler" even featured a wood-burning stove in the kitchen! Our favorite was Mae West's 1931 house car that was built to entice her to move from New York to make movies on the west coast; you can see a picture of it here. Some of the older models showed a glimpse of what was to come, like this "Silver Bullet". As you wander through the museum exhibits, the models get newer and more sophisticated, there's a 1976 Cadillac conversion, the revolutionary GMC Motorhome, and a 70s-era Winnebago Brave. If you're an RV owner or interested in RVs, this is a great place to visit and see how the industry has changed over the years.
When we were shopping for our first motorhome, we visited this area to tour the different manufacturer's plants to learn how they were made. One of our visits was to Wakarusa and the Monaco Plant. When we visited six years ago, the plant was a beehive of activity; nearly 1000 workers were producing Monaco and Holiday Rambler motorhomes and travel trailers. Today, Monaco has ceased operations and the plant is closed - weeds are growing up through the concrete where hundreds of RVs sat waiting for delivery, and as you drive around the area, you can see that supporting businesses that made mattresses, countertops, etc., for the plant have also closed or are only partially open. Reading that unemployment in the region is approaching 20% is a number that's hard to imagine; but seeing such a large manufacturing area closed up hits you with the realization of how tough times are for people here. Unfortunately, Monaco has filed Chapter 7 and is probably gone as a manufacturer, and while another company has bought some of the assets, it's doubtful that this area will ever see the plant reopen. It's a sad time for many of the area's residents and we hope they'll be able to recover.
We'll be here for a few more days and plan to do more exploring; come back and visit!