wanderlust: Gene Stratton-Porter, Shipshewana, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio

A few weeks ago, my family drove up to Shipshewana, IN. This little rural town, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, has a flea market of a minimum of 1,000 stalls. We definitely have to go back up there on one of those days. Shipshewana has a large Amish population, and it was fascinating to see dozens of buggies pass by us on the road. (Rather, we passed them, because they are horse-drawn, and slower.) We saw several garages housing buggies, and several Pioneer-era style clothed women gardening in their front yards. We stopped into an outdoor store, where they had porch swings, life-size cabins that you could buy, swing sets, gazebos, and pretty much anything else you could imagine, even puppies for adoption. Puppies are so fletching adorable, especially the ones that don't get big, lol. My favorite was a black Pomeranian puppy the size of my hands together. It wouldn't stop nibbling on my fingers.

We got Amish-made ice cream for lunch. Mine was Amaretto Cherry: marcino cherries and chocolate chunks. Gotta have chocolate. It was delicious. Then we went shopping in an Amish-run grocery store. There were a lot of teenaged cashiers, and I wondered what sort of life theirs must be. Certainly not half as crazy as mine, the urban-er.

Then we went to the cheese and meat store, and tasted cheese and jerky and marshmallow-cream peanut butter. Cheese is next to chocolate in deliciousness, I swear. Especially homemade cheese. (I was convinced that the fudge/cheese bar would be heaven, but they didn't have samples of that.)

Then, since we were ten miles away, we drove over the Michigan border, and got our pictures taken by the "Welcome To..." sign. Then we drove over the Ohio border, getting our pictures by the sign. I have now been in 19 states! Next weekend, I think we might go Lake Michigan and play on the beach. Before it gets too cold.

This country really is beautiful. It's so lush and green and...vast. When the trees aren't canopying you, you can see for miles over the rolling hills. It's incredible. And it has the cutest houses. I mean, seriously. Colonial, beach-like, Victorian, you name it. When we buy a house, I want a white Georgetown Colonial with blue accents (door, windowsills) and hanging and window baskets with red flowers, a quaint walkway, smooth green grass and gigantic, leafy trees.

This outdoor dinner table rocked back and forth!

A Buggie!

Then we went to the Gene Stratton-Porter home. She wrote "Girl of the Limberlost" in the 1800s. I am now reading it. The Stratton-Porter home is right on the lake and has a gorgeous flower garden with an ivy-covered arched pathway, all 1800-ish, and as I walked through it alone, I thought about how perfect a time it was for me to run inadvertently into a tall, strapping young suitor in breeches, with a thick British accent, who would take my arm and escort me through the garden, and we'd talk about horse-back riding and other such things that they would talk about in the 1800s. I felt like a Jane Austen heroine. If only I'd had an empire-waisted gown, instead of jeans.
After I read "Girl of the Limberlost" we'll return to the house to tour it. That should be fun.