Road Trip to Indy!

And we were off to road trip to Indy and Illinois!!  We decided it was high time to visit our friends Chad and Chelsea in South Bend, Indiana.  They had moved to Indy in May 2012 and we had yet to go visit them, so it was imperative we visit… stat!

Any nine hour road trip can be long; however, when you travel with Evan it just flies by.  

For starters, we don't eat normal snacks like Twizzlers or Goldfish.  Nope, we eat cheese curds.  I have never seen Evan ask about expiration dates except on cheese curds.  According to the Book of Evan, the cheese curds must squeak.  Now this may seem adorable at first thought, but than really think about it…. chomping, squeaky, a bag of cheese and rolled up windows.  You get the picture.

Our next favorite past-time in the car is singing.  This is a very fun activity if both parties are fully engaged.  However, if only one wants to sing it can become very long.  Luckily I had packed ear plugs.  I was under the assumption that these would block all noises.  This is a complete lie because I could completely hear Evan's baritone-melodied songs.  According to the Book of Evan, ear plugs only block out harsh noises and his voice is not harsh.

Finally we had arrived in South Bend at Chad and Chelsea's beautiful house!  Even after a long trip we managed to stay up way past my bedtime catching up on each other's stories.

The next day we ventured out in search of the elusive Amish :)  I was completely cheesing out!  Our first stop was Nappannee Coppes Commons and we hit the jackpot.  Check out all of those horses and buggies!

The Commons is such a unique place. It houses everything from a book store to unique groceries or an eatery to Amish woodwork/crafts.

They had loom weaving rugs that were just beautiful. 

In their culinary mill they had rows and rows of stacked goods.  It was just a different concept to see these foods in clear containers.

As Evan said "this would be awesome for building a gingerbread house." The picture below was all types of candies.  Now digest that because these are sorted out ombre style.  There were containers that contained candy ivory pearls, candy white pearls, Lucky Charm marshmallows, candy rocks, candy coal, gummy penguins, gummy cows, you get the point - it was like a little slice of diabetic heaven!!

They didn't stop just with candy.  They had all different types of flour, sugar, and powders.  So unique, and I LOVED IT!

They even had pickled items (gags), sauces, salsa, etc.

But by far was the Rocket Science Ice Cream portion of the Commons.  Omgoodness!  I had once seen this on the Food Network and it blew my mind.  Absolute amazingness.  Rocket Science Ice Cream uses ice cream mix and real fruits, nuts, and candy.  They use liquid nitrogen to freeze the ice cream mixture in front of your eyes.  This is the type of science I like :).  We shared a monstrous Monster Cookie Dough ice cream bowl.   I would have taken a picture but my Amish friends would prefer I didn't ;).

Our next adventure was to road scout for Amish in action!  I realize I sound like a total tourist psycho, but seriously who wouldn't get this excited?!
Is it a Firebird?  Is it a Scooter?  No, it's AMISH!!!

AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!!!

I made Evan take the camera at this point to get these excellent action shots :)

Meet the Yoders.

A little obsessive?  Yep.

Here are the top five fascinating facts about the Amish Chad and Chelsea informed us on:

1. They do not have electricity.  This means they will still dry their clothes in the winter on clothes lines outside.  Weeeeeee bit chilly!
2. They use outhouses.  
3. They cannot keep their phones inside.  Instead they have a separate little house, similar size to an outhouse, outside.  They usually wallpaper the inside to make it a bit fancier.
4. The buggies sit higher up, so if a car hits them the buggy will go over the vehicle and only the horse will be hurt.  Sad.
5. Grocery stores and other major locations in town have a lean to shed.  People park their cars in the parking lot.  The Amish park their horses in the lean to shed area.  Be careful of where you walk!

So I don't know if Chad and Chelsea will ever believe me, but the rest of the evening was awesome.  It was just what I wanted - visit, play games, talk about old times, and eat cheese and candy.  I haven't relaxed that much in a looooong time!

The next day Evan and I were going to head out, but before we did we had to hit up the Studebaker Museum and the University of Notre Dame campus.  

Evan loves cars and I love horses and buggies, so this was right up our alley.  The Studebaker family opened up their blacksmith shop in South Bend in 1852.  The started by making these beautiful wagons that would be driven across the prairie (sigh).

They modernized the wagon to meet a variety of needs.  Whether it was farming and family or a milk wagon.

In 1887, the company eclipsed $2M.  Try to imagine what that was like to have such an impacting, cutting edge company.   Their vehicles were even used by Presidents!  Check out that cute vehicle below!

Evan enjoyed the car portion more.  The Studebakers switched to car making in 1902, which meant my attention span got a whole lot shorter unless it had shiny lights…. 

Or looked like a Gangster used it :)

Overall it was a fantabulous trip to the wonderful state of Indiana.  We had a lovely host and hostess (I refrain for taking a FB photo and plastering it on the blog :)), many laughs, and tons of memories.  We cannot wait to see you two love birds again!!!