Even though one of the goals of this trip is to visit certain counties in Michigan, I wanted to swing thru Amish country as long as I was in the neighborhood, and that means returning to Indiana.
In mapping out my route ahead of time, I happened to see a road that sort of cut a diagonal across one of the rectangles formed by the grid of highways. It was a good choice. It meanders a bit, connecting with a few other local roads, and serves mostly to provide access to family farms, including some that are clearly Mennonite or Amish. The road is barely more than a single lane wide, but it’s paved, which is all I care about. It was a nice chance to slow down to 25mph or so. I did have to watch out for horse droppings of course. Lots of cattle and horses, crops, laundry hanging out to dry, etc. I saw a few people – including two men in straw hats fixing a fence – and traded nods and a friendly smile with one of them.
Shipshewana was every bit the tourist trap I expected it to be. Mostly “English” businesses selling Amishesque merchandise and Amishlike experiences. I moved on.
Middlebury is a little bigger town, and here I stopped for lunch, at a nondescript diner with the equally nondescript name Village Inn. A basic menu of sandwiches, pizza, burgers, and so on. Interestingly one of the waitresses wears a bonnet and plain lavender dress; another young woman in a bonnet is in the kitchen. There are buggies passing by from time to time here. It feels like a less contrived blend of cultures.
I was puzzled at first by the wide paved shoulders on the main roads around here. Then I noticed that they were generally littered with shit. They are (effectively) buggy lanes. I used one (a clean one) to get out of the way of a semi, but otherwise I’m staying clear of them, for the Amish folks’ safety and my own.