Amish Country Season 1. Episode 7 |
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Our next destination was the state of Indiana as we slow-traveled our way to meeting up with family in Michigan. We needed to get from Plymouth, Wisconsin to Holland, Michigan, but had a few weeks to spare in between. In planning our routes, I typically look at the Thousand Trails campground map to see if we can utilize our membership along the way. I found another TT (Thousand Trails) campground in Indiana, but we needed a week out of the system before we could enter the parks again. (You can read about that in my previous email here). |
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I am part of a Facebook group for full-time traveling families and asked for campground recommendations of places in the northern Indiana area. A few suggestions came in for Shipshewana, Indiana, and after a bit of research, I discovered it is the third largest Amish community in the U.S. and the town tagline is “A Town of Character." I was sold! |
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DESTINATION: SHIPSHEWANA, INDIANA |
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We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to our destination and these horses were right in our backyard! |
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The Campground: Shipshewana Campground South |
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The Shipshewana Campground is right in the heart of Amish country with horses as a backdrop and within walking distance to the local Amish stores. The campground was quiet and had a kids' park, but not a lot of other amenities. The boys did enjoy playing at the playground and watching the horse and buggies pass by every day. It was an ideal location, and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, walking the grounds and surrounding area. We were on full hook-ups (meaning we had electricity, sewer, and water!) which was a happy welcome after two weeks without a sewer hook-up in Wisconsin. It’s the little things! |
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Things to do in and around Shipshewana, Indiana |
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Shipshewana Flea Market While the actual population of Shipshewana is less than 1,000, more than half a million people come from around the world per year to visit and I’m guessing mostly for the Midwest’s largest outdoor flea market! The week we stayed here was really hot, but we did walk around the flea market one afternoon for a short time. The boys basically wanted to buy everything, so we only made it through a few aisles. We didn't stay long because I don't have a lot of patience for window shopping in sweltering, 90-degree weather. |
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Livestock Auctions On the same grounds as the flea market is the Livestock Auction Building. We attended several days of the live auctions which was fascinating and so fun to watch! The boys had a blast - we could have watched all day! This was absolutely a highlight! |
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Funny story, when we first drove past this building, we thought it stood for Mennonite Hall of Fame. That is definitely not it. At the museum, you get to experience the history and heritage of the Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites. A plaque on the wall reads “A people from Anabaptist roots who aim to follow Christ in obedient discipleship, who hold that believing and serving go hand in hand, who take a loving but critical view of society and government, who strive for simplicity and integrity in word and deed.” Traveling through five centuries of fascinating history, the tour is about 1 hour and 15 minutes long and is interactive. The staff members are very friendly and move you throughout the building for the tour, happily answering questions along the way. We got to explore a 17th century sailing ship and replicas of a print shop and meeting house, experience the simulation of a tornado room, and see an Amish room set up like the inside of an Amish house. This was heavy on information and history so I knew it would not hold the little boys’ attention. One afternoon, I took Kinnick and Whittaker and this was one of my favorite things we did. I found the history, facts, and differences about the three different people groups very interesting! For example, in a description of their transportation it read, “A car may get you there quicker, but in a buggy you hear and see more along the way.” The Amish believe cars cause families to be away from home and away from each other too often. Buggies keep people closer to nature and their community, and therefore, closer to God. We learned all about the reasons for their ways of life, the common elements of dress among the Amish, their daily rhythms and farm schedule, and much more! It’s a very reasonably priced tour – it cost around $15 for three of us to do the tour. I highly recommend visiting if you are in the area or even on a long weekend trip to Shipshewana, Indiana! |
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Also, on a sidenote. While the Amish are out there living off the land and powering their transportation by horses, we were paying $5.89/gallon for diesel. Ugh. Talk about ironic! Whose idea was it to travel the country in the midst of sky-high diesel prices?! |
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Country Road Fabrics & Gifts This shop was literally a hop, skip, and a jump away from the campground. It was one of the boys’ favorite stores with lots of boots and hats to admire. The store had a large fabric section and I actually asked if they knew of any locals that would help me with a sewing project. Of course they did! They handed me a business card and I made a call to a gal who was willing to take on a sewing project I had been wanting done for a few months. Our oldest two boys share a room with bunk beds and the two little boys sleep in a loft. (This reminds me; I should do an email update with a tour of our home on wheels!) Each of the boys have a foam mattress that is a unique size traditional bedding does not fit. Here is what their beds looked like most days up until our visit to Shipshewana: |
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What a mess! I wanted zip bedding to make it easier for them to make, and honestly, for my sanity of having to look at this every day! My mother-in-law and sister-in-law helped me think through the design of it and we even were able to experiment a little with some old sheets a few months prior. After chatting on the phone about the project, Wanda from Shipshewana invited me to her beautiful home to bring all of the supplies I already had for the project, and to explain to her what I had in mind. We had a nice time chatting and she even invited us to church with them that Sunday - she was so sweet and kind. Within a week’s time, she made my vision come to life and I could not be happier. She also charged me an insanely reasonable price and I was just smitten with the finished project! Here is what it looks like on their beds now. The comforters are sewn onto the sheet via a zipper and now the boys can easily zip up their bedding every morning. I'm not saying that always happens, but it is certainly a huge improvement! So much better! |
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Pumpkinvine Nature Trail This 25-mile paved trail connects the communities of Elkhart, Goshen, Middlebury, and Shipshewana. This would be a fun day outing for biking! Unfortunately, we don’t travel with bikes, but we did hop on the trail from a downtown Shipshewana park for a long walk which took us through some pretty countryside and allowed us to pet and admire the beauty of some very friendly and large horses! |
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Joyfully Said Signs On Kinnick’s birthday, we went out for ice cream in Middlebury, Indiana which is just about 20 minutes from Shipshewana and on the way back, we drove through its downtown. I often say some of the best things come from spontaneous and unplanned adventures and this was no exception. While driving back to the campground, I noticed a sign for Joyfully Said signs. I knew this sounded familiar so I immediately looked online and sure enough, I had seen their beautiful artwork and had been following them for a while. They are a family-owned, Christ-centered, wall art and home décor business. What started in the garage of their home one day has blossomed into a beautiful business and storefront. They weren’t open the evening we passed through but I went back later in the week and even picked up a wedding gift. I would absolutely add this to your agenda if you’re visiting the area. According to their website, it looks like they have some fun events at the market too. Plus, as you drive to the store, you can take in the peaceful scenery as you travel the Amish countryside. |
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Driving the Countryside As we explored the area, I was smitten with the beautiful countryside. One of my favorite things was to drive the country roads. Of course we were there in the middle of the summer so everything was very lush and green. The Amish take incredible care of their properties, buildings, and houses. We would often see barefoot children playing outside, several families gathered together for outdoor dining, horse-drawn farm equipment working in the fields, countless horses and buggies, and the very unique phone booths next to the roads but not near the houses. Fun fact – some Amish have a “community phone booth” to use and it’s ok for some of them to have as long as it’s not inside their house. |
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Heritage Audio Tour Much to the boys' dismay, I found a driving audio tour! It’s pretty much a running joke around the camper to keep me away from any self-guided tours whether it be through a little town, the countryside, on paper, on audio – basically anything that has us on a wild goose chase! I ignored their comments and we loaded into the truck one day to see what it was all about. I think I came across it in one of the visitor guides I picked up in the campground office – they’re so useful! The audio driving tour is a 90-mile route that winds through the Elkhart County area from the comfort of your own car while providing lots of opportunities to stop and enjoy attractions, shops, restaurants and more at your leisure! The loop takes you through the communities of Elkhart, Goshen, Middlebury, Nappanee, Bristol, Wakarusa, and Shipshewana. It’s FREE and an awesome way to explore the area. We of course did not do the entire 90-mile tour as my passengers would have been much too upset with me, so I picked a short route around Shipshewana and Middlebury. You can pick up a free cd of the audio tour at the Elkhart County Visitors Center or stream it on your phone (which I did!). Another incredible aspect of the tour are the quilt gardens sprinkled throughout the route. The online map has them all laid out and we saw a few of them, which were beautiful! The audio tour gives you all the directions you need but I found it helpful to also print the map that is provided online as well. We set off in the morning, packed a picnic lunch, made a few stops along the way and easily spent 4-5 hours doing just that small portion. |
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Bonneyville Mill As I said previously, this is a stop along the Heritage Audio Tour but can easily be visited on its own. We had the oldest continuously operating grist mill in Indiana all to ourselves on a summer weekday! It was a treat because we had the full attention of the two volunteers working the mill that day. Powered by the river, corn meal, wheat flour, and buckwheat are still produced by the mill’s two grinding stones today. The self-guided tour takes you throughout the entire mill with lots of history and fun facts along the way. |
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Kinnick got to go behind the counter and turn the old crank to start up the milling process. It was so neat to see the grain being ground into flour. One of the volunteers had made homemade brownies that morning with the flour and they were the most delicious brownies ever. We purchased a little bag of the stone ground flour and of course asked for the recipe! |
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Anytime we are near any type of body of water, the boys are always looking to catch something! One of the mill volunteers let the boys borrow a huge net if they promised to bring it back. He told us about a trail on the property that took us out to a swampy area with tons of tadpoles and frogs! They were in creature Heaven! |
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Middlebury Park Our next stop on the audio tour took us through Middlebury and we stopped at the park to have lunch. The big boys jumped in on a game of Ga-Ga ball with some other kids while Paxton, Tate, and I explored the little stream in the park. Again, looking to catch some sort of creatures! |
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Downtown Shipshewana I found a great laundromat on the opposite side of Shipshewana, so one day as I was waiting on laundry to be done, I explored the downtown area. It’s a charming walkable area and a great place to just sit down and take in the sights and sounds of the Amish buggies and horses traveling the roads. The Yoder Department Store is not far from downtown and is a beautiful store. It is very clean and well taken care of, has a lot of unique items, and just a fun place to spend some time browsing. |
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E & S Bulk Sales This is the local Amish grocery store! If you’ve never been to one of these, it’s quite an experience. A lot of bulk items and what I think is overstock from other chain stores gets sent here. You can usually find a lot of good deals but can easily get carried away! I loved walking to the store from the campground, toting my wagon behind me to get groceries. Our staples at the store were the bakery-fresh bread, bulk cheese, fresh produce, super cheap graham crackers and apple jacks, and the fun candy aisle. |
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Das Kaffee Haus One morning Jeremy and I walked to this coffee shop which we could literally see from our site. You can read all about them here but I love their mission and purpose to give hope and joy to others. 100% of the profits go to featured causes that serve others in need locally and abroad. |
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Rise ‘N Roll Bakery We were recommended to try the cinnamon caramel donuts here and unfortunately the day we visited, they had already sold out. We apparently needed to get there sooner! We did try the cinnamon caramel donut holes though, which were delicious! |
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Yoder Popcorn The Yoder family has been around for a long time in Amish country! You’ll notice lots of businesses with the Yoder name in Shipshewana. Back in 1936, Rufus Yoder started growing popcorn on his family farm and after sharing his excess crop with neighbors and friends, his popcorn business was born! We just stopped in to browse but the popcorn samples were much appreciated from all of us! |
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Honorable Mention (This is where I’ll include things that came recommended but that we didn’t do) |
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Restaurants The Essenhaus Restaurant and Blue Gate Theatre and Restaurant came highly recommended from multiple sources. Even though we are meandering the country, we still have to live on a budget. Eating out as a family of six is not cheap so we didn’t visit any of those restaurants this time, but for true Amish cooking, I’m sure either would be great options! Ben’s Pretzels This now-chain pretzel company got its Amish-inspired beginnings at a humble farmer’s market. I guess I’m a nerd in this way, but I love to learn about how small businesses get their start. They have a fascinating story you can read about here and while we didn’t make it in to try their pretzels, I’d have to say this is probably a must-stop if you’re in the area as well! |
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Wow, typing that all out and re-living our week in Shipshewana has me exhausted! We packed a LOT in a week! Now that I’ve basically written the upcoming edition for the Shipshewana Visitor’s Guide and shared all of the fun things we did here, we also encountered a few challenges during our stay in Amish country. |
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The second day into our stay, a storm rolled in during the evening. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad in our area but the surrounding towns got hit harder, resulting in a power outage. The campground lost power which meant we did not have electricity in the camper. The next day was a scorcher – in the mid 90’s, humid as all get out, and it was sweltering hot inside the camper by early morning. It also just happened to be Kinnick’s birthday. We abandoned homemade birthday breakfast plans and went to the local bakery. The kids and I found a pool in a nearby town to cool off. As we were on the way, Jeremy called to let us know the power had come back on, for which we were so grateful! |
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Shortly after that power outage, I started to notice that the fridge and freezer were not keeping temperature. The freezer was not keeping anything frozen and the refrigerator was hovering around 50 degrees. After some research, I made a call to LG (the manufacturer) and had an appointment scheduled for 2 weeks out. I quickly discovered scheduling repair on your residential fridge in a camper is not something LG is accustomed to doing. They need your physical address in order to schedule a repair. Here's how that went: On the phone, I give them our current address in Shipshewana. Nothing available for the time we are there. I give them our next address in Howe, Indiana. Nothing available while we are there. Every time I would give them the address we would be at during a specific time frame, there would be no available repair times. It was basically a frustrating cycle. Finally I give them the address to the Holland, Michigan destination and they were able to find availability – two weeks in the future. Not ideal, but at least we were getting somewhere. Ironically, we were in the literal RV manufacturer mecca in Indiana at the time, and after I don’t know…probably ten+ different calls, I couldn't find anyone to work on our fridge. I would call RV repair services and they would refuse to work on it because it is a residential fridge (meaning it runs off electric, not propane). They would suggest calling an appliance repair shop to which I would, and then they would refuse to work on it because the fridge is in a camper. All I have to say is I just can’t get the hours back in my life that I spent on the phone calling for repairs. We just decided to wait the two weeks, hobbling through and trying to make it work until then. |
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In the meantime, I cooked all the meat that was previously frozen and we replenished the freezer with ice to keep the other things as cold as possible. Of course with the Midwest summer temperatures, the ice would melt and then water would pool in the bottom of the freezer which I would then scoop out cup by cup to empty it and repeat that process every few days. I was basically keeping a cooler of food inside the camper. It was not my favorite thing to do but I was trying to stay positive with a repair at least scheduled. With the fridge also not keeping temperature, I was basically in a state of panic every time we ate, hoping none of us would suffer from food poisoning. Of course, the ever so calm Jeremy was never concerned while I probably lost a few years of my life worrying about something that ultimately never happened. Welcome to our marriage, ha! |
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This week in Indiana also brought on a new challenge as we were a few weeks into the summer post school year-end and the boys seemed to be getting a little restless and were not as busy at this campground. Whether in a typical home or camper, each season brings having to adjust to a new rhythm and routine. The previous two weeks was full of pool time and playing baseball with friends so they were very active all day long! This new campground did not have as many amenities nor any kids their ages so lucky for them - we instituted a daily workout. That lasted all of about 20 minutes each day but at least got their blood flowing in the morning. The rest of our time was full of exploring Shipshewana! |
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After our week stay in Shipshewana, we actually only had to travel about 15 minutes to our next campground, which was back in the Thousand Trails system. I unfortunately didn’t pay attention to the check-in time so we pulled into the campground about an hour too soon and our site was still occupied so we had to leave for a bit. Finding a place to spontaneously park the big rig isn’t the easiest thing in the world but we happened upon a gem! We basically drove a few miles down the road, found an old college campus and that marks the beginning of our love of visiting college campuses on this wild journey! We have found that they are great places to walk or even park at on the weekends while traveling through different cities for a quick picnic lunch. This one was especially fascinating because it was abandoned. We were most likely border line trespassing, but it was a cool experience walking the grounds and peeking in the windows of the OLD buildings. It was the perfect place to park and helped to pass the time. |
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The next week at Twin Mills Resort in Howe, Indiana was full of more daily exercise, swimming in the pool, lots of walks around the campground, haircuts outside, and cooling off at the lakefront. My saga of freezer ice/freezer melt continued, and we were counting down the days until we got to meet up with cousins in Michigan! |
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Tune in next time when I start recapping our time in Michigan – which to date, is one of our favorite states we have visited. Can you believe it?! I’ll give you all the details of the hype in the next episode so you won’t want to miss it! |
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