Shipshewana

We didn't have any big plans for Memorial Day. Bob thought he had to work, so I was just planning to get some things done at home and he was planning to grill something for supper when he came home.   On Friday, my sister Cheri had sent me a message that they were going to drive to Shipshewana and wondered if we wanted to ride along.  Shortly after that Bob came home and said he had Monday off!  So we were happy to accept that offer.
For those of you who don't know, Shipshewana is in Indiana and is in an area where there are a lot of Amish.  Unlike Michigan, Indiana is not on lockdown, so people are able to go to restaurants and do some shopping.
We thought it would be a beautiful drive and also that it would be so nice to eat in a restaurant again.
We left at 10am, and drove the two hours to Shipshewana.  It was a beautiful day and the drive was very nice.

 Here is the Das Dutchman Essenhaus.  It's a very large business.  What you see here is the restaurant and Amish Bakery.  There is also an inn, many little shops and a theatre.
We went in to sign is and were told there would be an hour wait, so we wandered into some of the shops.
As we walked through the parking lot, we took note of the license plates.  We saw one from Indiana, one from Illinois and all the rest were from Michigan.  It seems a lot of people wanted a bit of freedom.

They were giving carriage rides.  We didn't do this, this time, but have in the past and it's always fun.
The shops were watching how many people were inside and the shoppers were being careful.

Here is the area we were in.  As you can see, the tables are set quite far apart and all the staff were wearing masks.
We felt very safe and we felt this was a good example of how to open things up, but still be safe.

We had a family style meal with chicken, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes and Amish noodles. The meal comes with pie, which we took to go, because we were all very full!

 After our meal, we drove to an Amish store.  We saw several Amish wagons and buggies.  It was fun driving in the area and seeing the farms.  A lot of them had laundry hanging out to dry.

 The Amish store is huge, with groceries and lots of other things.  Aren't these little pedal cars cute?

The front parking lot is filled with cars, but on the side are hitching posts for the horses and buggies.

After this stop we headed home.  We were home by 5, so we had a nice relaxing evening.
It was a refreshing day and so nice to do something that felt a little normal again!