In the land of Buggies and Bonnets!

We had a tough decision to make yesterday. Take the straight short trip (only about 6 hours) from Louisville to Chicago and get out of our cramped car as soon as possible OR take a detour to Northern Indiana and visit the Amish country (about 8.5 hours). Lucky for us and you--we chose the Amish.

With the help of our mobile Internet, we scouted out a great Farmers Market in Elkshart, Indiana. Unfortunately, the Internet is full of lies and the market was only open Wednesday-Sunday. This upset our souls and we were close to tears when alas, we found some cute old women and a scarecrow standing near the empty marketplace. They directed us to a beautiful Amish community approximately 10 miles down the road.

I swear there is something about our group that attracts the love of little old women. We met another little old lady in an Amish shop who talked herself silly, filling us in on Amish facts, her own history which included living in an Amish village/going to an Amish school as the only non-Amish person, etc. We found it puzzling that a non-Amish person would live among the Amish her entire life without converting? She directed us to a local community- beautiful countryside dotted with rather normal comfortable-looking farmhouses. Surprisingly, it doesn't look that different from a normal rural neighborhood. Although, we did see a lot of Amish families traveling in their plain dress on bikes and open air buggies. After mingling with some cows (Caroline was convinced that they were angry and would charge at us at any moment- see video), we stopped at a country store and bought some homemade Banana Bread- yum yum. After leaving, we just couldn't wrap our minds around the lifestyle that we had just seen. There we were, with cellphones, computers, radio, GPS, driving through a community that used no technology, ran their own schools, made their own clothes, and had little contact with the outside world. Such a interesting, unique experience!

Sidenote: we have a bone to pick with Indiana. Their welcome to Indiana signs are not conducive to our plan to take a picture with every state sign. Although we came THIS CLOSE to stopping in the middle of the highway and causing a major traffic jam by standing on top of the car to pose, we didn't. Thus, we have no picture with the Indiana sign and we are not pleased.

Our only other stop was the University of Notre Dame. It is graduation week and as you may know, Obama is speaking. Lots of traffic and protesters kept us from seeing a lot of the campus, but it was still a pretty cool stop.

Later that night we arrived outside Chicago to stay with Rachael's high school friend, Jenna, another warm and welcoming host, and crashed early to prepare for a fun-filled day in the windy city.

PS. What was the world like without snuggies? Those things are taking OVER and for good reason. We are only halfway kidding and by the end of this trip, we probably won't be kidding at all.