Indiana Jones and the Amish…July 27, 2015

We loaded the car and headed south to the Amish Country of Indiana.  Small communities along the upper portion of Indiana on country roads.  We first went to Shipshewana and it was a beautiful little town with everything Amish.  It had buggy’s, bicycles, flowers, shops, bakeries and lots of other shops.  Debbie had some specific things she was looking for and found all but one of them while we were going from store to store.  We had a great time looking at everything in the meat and cheese store too.  They had many things like ring bologna that I used to get when I lived in Pennsylvania.  The Amish would come to a place called Booth’s Corner on Friday and Saturdays to sell their meats, cheese and baked goods.  I took Debbie there when we went to New Jersey and she bought so much stuff and took it home with her.  I would have bought many more things if I had a way to get them home.  It was really fun.  We did drive to Middlebury next and went through some shops there but nothing after our first stop would measure up.  We spent some time getting lost in other places and by the time we gave up and started to head to our final stop over for the night we realized we were only an hour from Fort Wayne.  We decided to go on to Indianapolis and did some quick changes to our reservations and found a hotel.  We pulled into the parking lot at the Hampton Inn at 5:30 PM…yay.  No real driving tomorrow which is good.  I need to reorganize the things I bought since I will be flying home on Wednesday.  We are both whipped tonight and we are going to relax and get a good night’s sleep.  Day eleven is in the books and the last day is coming up tomorrow.

Holland – July 26, 2015

We had a leisurely morning getting ready since our drive was only about an hour and a half.  Since it was Sunday, nothing much will be open before noon so we take our time.  We have researched this city and “supposedly” the downtown looks like the buildings in Holland, Amsterdam.  There is major road work going on as we enter the city and not only is it difficult to drive through but there are no signs to direct you.  Some of the streets are completely blocked and others are one way.  We are through the city and out twice already before we find a sign that says “Windmill Island Gardens”.  We follow the signs and miss the turn off….again.  After going down a one way street the wrong way and getting stuck at a dead end street we finally find it.   Not what was described and now they want us to pay to get in to see the windmill and the shops and gardens.  We decide it wasn’t worth the price and took photos and left.  We did find Lake Michigan and the park and it was a beautiful.  We took a bunch of pictures there and then decided since it was still early, we would find the covered bridge that was first on our list for tomorrow.  We again have difficulty finding it but did find it in the end.  It was very cool and interesting since you could actually drive over it.  We enjoyed it and we were glad we made the effort.  We stopped on the way back to Kalamazoo and had lunch.  Since it was just 2 PM, we decided rather than go to the hotel and be lazy, we would drive another 20 miles north past the hotel and spend a couple hours at the Gun Lake Casino.  It was packed and quite a large place.  We stayed for about two and a half hours and had a fun time.  We headed back to the hotel and stopped on the way for dinner.  When we got back to the hotel, I did laundry and we are watching some TV.  Tomorrow we head south to Indiana into Amish country and then will spend the night in Ft. Wayne.  Our adventure is rapidly coming to an end.

Sleeping Bear Dunes – July 25, 2015

We were up, dressed, coffee in hand and in the car by 8 AM this morning.  This is our longest driving day and this happened because we couldn’t find a place to stay.  We heard others in the hotel talking about it too.  It started raining on us while we were loading the car and poured for much of the way to Traverse City before clearing up and the sun peeking through the clouds.  We stopped at a roadside stand and bought some cherries.  They are in season here right now.  While chatting after that Debbie said she needed to turn around because there was something I needed to see.  This was so funny….it was a tree just covered in pairs of shoes!  It really was too funny for words…a shoe tree.  By the time we reached Traverse City the sun was shining.  Debbie had found this bakery she wanted to find called the Grand Traverse Pie Company.  We find it and go in and got two slices of cherry pie and had the cherry coffee with it….yummy!  It was oh so good that we got a small pie to go and Debbie bought some of the coffee to take home.  We attempted to find the lighthouse on the peninsula but that didn’t go well.  There were no signs to help either so we gave up.  The scenery was beautiful and this city is just a gorgeous, upscale seaside town.

From there our goal was to find Sleeping Bear Dunes which is a National Park.  We were taken on quite the round about trip through many back roads and finally came to the dunes.  Also not what we expected.  Debbie was excited to get her Senior Park Pass since she is now old enough to get one.  They are valuable as you get in free to most of the parks or pay a much reduced fee is there is one.  We used mine when we did all the parks out west a few years ago.  Anyway we go in and watch people on this giant dune try to climb to the top.  The kids were having a blast while most adults sank up to their knees in the sand and were frustrated.  We decided to forego the dunes and move on to try to find the beautiful lighthouse at Ludington.  This is where Bitchin Betty our GPS took us on an unusual detour through dense woods on a dirt road that was only wide enough for one car.  I was relieved when we came out to see a real road at the end of the forest!  We drove to Ludington and found the lighthouse.  It was pretty but I guess the pictures we saw did it more justice than being there in person.  It was a cute little town though.  By now it is afternoon and we hadn’t eaten anything since pie that morning so we started looking for a place to have lunch.  We get to the little lakeside town of Pentwater and had lunch outside at the Village Café.  When the breeze started blowing off the lake we thought we should have brought our jackets as it got a bit chilly.  We saw a bride and groom wandering around the street with a couple others from their wedding party we assumed.   When we finished we got on the road to our final destination of Kalamazoo.  It was another two and a half hours of driving before we arrived.  We got checked into the Hampton Inn where we will spend tonight and tomorrow night.  We ordered pizza and it was really good or we were really hungry.  Now we are in stare mode and tired from another active day. 

 

This is the road Betty told us to take...dirt and we were on it for a few miles!