8/24/2009
Leaving the dunes behind you headed towards the Amish town of Shipshewana. Since we had no formal dinner plans and we wouldn’t arrive in Shipshewana before around 10 o’clock we decided to just look for the first oddly-named restaurant off of the highway. Sure enough, we came upon a place called “Honkers.” Sounded odd enough. Turns out it’s a chain, but we don’t have them in Ohio (at least, not near us) so we didn’t know that.
After filling our bellies we continued on our journey and our search for the Amish Log Cabin Lodging and Campground, where we were going to stay the night. Wow. Is that place hard to find? I suppose it should go without saying that there isn’t a lot of lighting in Amish country, so we couldn’t read the road signs. Even the GPS was failing us… my precious, precious GPS. Don’t worry. I continued to defend its honor despite the situation. We eventually stopped at a gas station that had just closed. I tried to get the guy’s attention inside. I got it, but, boy, was he mad. There was no way he was going to open the door for some weird guy like me. After much searching we found the campground’s southern location. That would have been great, except we were looking for their northern location. No clear indication where that was though. Eventually, by sheer luck we found the campground. Luckily, I had already informed the front office that we wouldn’t be arriving until after hours, so our key had been left outside in an envelope.
By now, it was nearly midnight, but at least we finally made it to our cabin. I say cabin, but it was essentially a hotel room, with a shower, maid service and the whole lot. They do offer more rustic cabins, but we chose the city slickers route. The first thing we did when we got there was give Daniel a bath. He enjoyed the sand, but not in his diaper. Finally, we got to get to bed and got some sleep.
The next morning we had a pretty good breakfast (provided) in the campground’s front office, before heading to the Shipshewana Flea Market. Laura was particularly excited about this part of the trip. We had read that this was a rallying point for Amish to trade and bid on their wares. Perhaps it once was. What we saw was a tourist trap of the worst kind. Vendors hawking Obama hats. Vanity license plates. We searched all over for some Amish goods, but we couldn’t find any. There were some Amish and Mennonites selling produce, so we picked up some of that. But the Amish were clearly marginalized. What happened here?
Disappointed in the flea market, we decided to visit the Menno-Hof Amish and Mennonite Museum that we read about in a brochure at the campground. This wasn’t a part of our original agenda, but we were so disgusted by the flea market we wanted to make something of our Shipshewana visit.
The museum was interesting. It went almost overboard on multi-media – perhaps to buck some Mennonite stereotypes, I don’t know. An old man was particularly proud of “The Tornado Room.” You sit in this dark room and then this TV comes on showing grainy, black and white footage of tornadoes. You think, “Ok. Time for a nap.” Suddenly, jets of cold air are shot in your face, artificial lightning starts flashing, loud noises are crashing, and the room actually starts to vibrate. Yeah. Daniel was not happy. We got out of there quickly and the old man seemed very disappointed. He told us that kids usually love it. Sure. Maybe six-year olds. Three-month olds - not so much.
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