RV Museum & Hobo Stew

This morning Bill, Helen, Dean and I took off in search of the Cheese Factory where you "can watch cheese being made" which is in the Amish area just east of Elkhart. On the way there we passed the noodle factory where you can "watch noodles being hand made" by the Amish but decided to stop on our way back. Then we came to the bakery, well, we just couldn't pass it by. They make homemade donuts and had samples . Ohhh, but they were good! They also make homemade brittle and the girls where busy making cashew brittle this morning, mixing everything by hand - no Mix Master here! The only thing that they didn't have that I was very disappointed in was No Sticky Buns!!! Darn, my mouth was all set for one but since there were none, I settled for a cinnamon/maple donut instead :). Also the apple pie in my pictures came from the bakery and it is delicious.

We finally got to the cheese factory only to find out that they only make the cheese on Mondays and Fridays - bummer. Here again, it's Amish so everything is basically done by hand or machines powered by a generator.

From there we drove on over to Shipshewana for a short visit to Yoder's Cheese and Meat store. Helen was looking for some crumbled blue cheese, but there was none to be had.

As we were driving along the county road toward Shipshewana we passed a sign for AKC Pugs - well Helen just sighed so loud. She said that they love pugs. Well, on our way back to the noodle shop, I turned down the dirt/gravel road where the Pugs where, but then the story was we just can't get one so I turned around. I was just going to take them to take a look, not to buy!

We arrived at the noodle store only to be disappointed again. They were not making noodles - they were on lunch break. Before we left, two women did begin the process again, but looking through the windows to the work area was not good as there was to much light reflection and they also had drying racks sitting in front of the viewing windows - not very well planned out for tourists, which is what they are trying to attract!

We meandered on back to the campground as we were scheduled to leave shortly for the RV Museum. It was a lovely morning, driving the county roads among the Amish farms. If we hadn't had to get back - I think we would have spent the whole day roaming the country side - it's so pretty and fascinating.

At six o'clock we all gathered around Smokey & Pam's for the Hobo Stew get together. The stew was great - had everything but the kitchen sink in it. There was some good home made corn bread and cheese biscuits to go along with the stew and for dessert we had Pineapple Upside Down Cake and Peach Cobbler - of course home made. I didn't count but I think there were about 24 of us. Had a great time chatting until the bugs drove us inside - again!

Not sure what else we will be doing while in the area so check back often...

Pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/SchultzTravelPhotos