4.7.2012 – 4.7.2012 
35 °C
Our day got going early this morning as we headed back out to Midway Airport Chicago to pick up our rental car for this leg of the journey. The train trip out was easy and carefree. Arrived at the rental agency to work out that for some reason our price (that we had booked and on our voucher) was not the same price as the rental agency had in their computer system. After some chatting the rental agency agreed to waive a cost for us so that we ended up with a cheaper rate than we had even booked! On top of this we had already negotiated to upgrade the car again (to an Avalon again).. all of this and no extra cost!! In fact, we ended up saving just under a hundred bucks!!! SWEET! Happy 4th July Dunham Family!
So on this great note, we headed back to the hotel to pick up M and our gear before we headed out of Chicago and on our way to Indiana and eventually Ohio. Our trip today was actually quite interesting.. It is the 4th of July today so our plan was to try and find some sort of small town to watch their parade and their fireworks celebration. We achieved part of our plan and missed on the other… Oh well!
So our drive across the top of Indiana. Pretty interesting… The first part was thru the outskirts of Chicago, so plenty of old industrial buildings rusting away, dilapidated houses etc.. Not the most scenic of drives, but as we left the big city behind we entered into miles upon miles of corn and soy fields dotted with houses and grain silos. Much more picturesque.. I can’t believe the amount of agriculture in this country.. it is literally field after field after field. Nearly all of our drive today was thru farms.. This country has WAY more plant farms than what we do.. I guess water is the factor…. Its interesting we haven’t really seen any dairy or beef or sheep (or any sort of livestock) farms on our trip.. We saw a bit of beef farming in Montana and a tiny bit in Wyoming, but nothing on our scale.. All of the farming we’ve seen to date has been plant farms.. I guess the meat is all in the middle of the country that we deliberately by passed!! J
We made a detour today thru South Bend Indiana, home to Notre Dame University. Our first glimpse of the town was obviously of the poorer suburbs because we initially thought what a dumpy town! Once we were closer to the uni the town really improved with some beautiful stately buildings down by the river front. We thought we might get some sort of street parade in South Bend… And maybe there was.. maybe we were too late.. not sure but anyhow by the time we made it to South Bend the town had gone back to sleep and nearly everything was closed! We found a pub open near the uni campus where we gratefully settled in for a cold drink and some chicken wings. The uni itself apparently only has 8,000 students (I find that number hard to believe..) but has a football stadium with a capacity of 80,000 people!!! This town isn’t that big so I’m absolutely flabbergasted at the size of their football stadium (and its only used for college football!!!!) Supposedly, football is a religion in this part of the world and everyone goes to watch their college team win… Uni wise, a bit disappointing.. our first ivy league uni and so we had visions of sandstone buildings, big lawned areas, big oak trees etc… Notre Dame is a bit more modern looking.. red bricks, no ivy, pavement and lots of fields for football/ soccer etc! After our lunch at the pub we headed back on the road continuing our journey east.
Late in the afternoon saw us driving thru the third largest Amish community area in the US, Middlebury to Shipshewana, Indiana. This area is lush, cultivated agricultural areas that is dotted with white farmsteads complete with barn areas and silos! Very cutesy, farm town USA. What makes it even better is to see the horse drawn buggies clippety clopping up and down the streets with their human passengers dressed in their finest 1800s attire! The men all seem to have beards and wear hats, long sleeved shirts and trousers (held up with suspenders). The ladies are decked out in long dresses complete with bonnets. As I said the finest 1800s attire! The town of Shipshewana is just tops!! Totally cutesy with little quaint shops with beautiful neat gardens. The main type of store seems to be antique style as apparently the Amish people are avid users of old stuff. For example, old hand tools etc are in hot demand by the local community so many antique dealers come from all around to sell old stuff to these folks. We saw some amusing sites here in the town. The funniest was this old Amish guy who was driving a tractor.. Now this seems strange in itself because here he is zooming along the road on a new John Deer tractor.. It gets stranger when you realise that the tractor is towing a trailer.. and you see that the trailer is decked out with four fold up chairs (you know the old 80s type that everyone seemed to have for bbq’s? the type with the canvas bit that you sit on and that has a spring loaded action to open/ close?) that are occupied by passengers!!!! Too funny! Obviously, this guy has given up the horse drawn buggy in favour for a tractor with trailer!!
Unfortunately, it was late in the day so we missed out on really speaking to any local Amish shop keepers and were only able to see a couple out in the town. Supposedly, they don’t like having their photo taken (and it is rude to ask to take their photo) so my shots of them and their buggies are pretty poor.. Oh well!
We finished out our day by driving all the way thru Indiana and into Ohio finishing up in the city of Toledo. We kept on driving hoping that a big city would mean fireworks and we weren’t disappointed. After finding a nice cheap place to stay we hopped into our buggy and headed downtown to see the fireworks display. The main town parkland was packed!! I reckon most of the town had shown up to see the fireworks. We managed to nab a spot on the walkway overlooking the little bay (in front of the park) next to two Canadians! Wouldn’t that be right that just when you want to find some locals you end up next to tourists!! Once the fireworks started I was surprised (although in hindsight I shouldn’t have been!) to hear that the backing track to the fireworks were all patriotic songs.. on top of that the fireworks were all red, white and blue coloured! Too funny! What also surprised me was that hardly any of the party goers downtown were decked out in patriotic clothing.. I had expected to see heaps of Uncle Sam hats, flags, red white and blue clothing etc… Hardly any of it!! What a great way to celebrate the 4th July, Amish peoples and fireworks!! What more could I have asked for????
Song of the Day– Katy Perry, Firework