The Rest of our Vacation: Chicago & the Amish

After checking out Chicago and deciding there wasn't a whole lot to do, we grabbed a pamphlet from our hotel for a little Amish place called Amish Acres. We thought it would be fun to check it out because neither of us has been to Amish country and it was on the way to Michigan. We were a little skeptical about its authenticity, because the name was trade-marked and the pamphlet gave a telephone # and an email address. Do the Amish use phones and computers these days? When we finally got there at 6:00pm, all the little buildings were closed except for the shop and restaurant. So we bought some Amish bread and peach butter (kind of like jam). We also ate at the restaurant. As it turns out, the Amish Acres is located in Nappannee, IN, which has Amish people there, but the farm is not run by the Amish. I guess you could say they exploit the Amish. But it was still fun and let me tell you, the Amish (fake or not) can cook! They served the food family-style, and it was a lot of food! Check out our little buffet (complete with beef, potatoes & gravy, green beans, bread, apple butter, stuffing, fried chicken, beef & noodles, bean soup, pickles & sweet onions, and don't forget the pie). We were stuffed!

After the big dinner, we rolled ourselves out to the car and finished our drive to Kalamazoo. Here's the rest of the pictures.