Our Cross-Country Road Trip 2011: Amish Country Illinois

When we sat down to plan out our cross-country road trip, one of the things we all knew we wanted to do was to visit Amish country. And so our next stop was Arthur, Illinois. We began our morning at an Amish cafe where we had a delicious traditional Amish breakfast at Yoder's Kitchen. Almost everyone had the GIGANTIC cinnamon rolls or the biscuits and gravy, except for mom and I, who had the Haystack. Yum! Everything was homemade (of course!)

and so delicious! The town was quaint and these buggies were found all around town.

They even had a stable near the visitor center for parking the buggies.

We so enjoyed the little town with all of its cute little shops and Amish goods available for purchase, but my favorite part was touring the countryside. All the Amish farms had the same characteristics: beautiful, large white farm houses and outbuildings, extremely well-maintained yards, large gardens, and laundry hung out to dry somewhere around the house, usually on a rope tied across the frontporch (as pictured above).

Here we are following one of the buggies out in the country.

Another typical mode of transportation: the bike. These were lined up in front of one the woodshops.

Another one of the beautiful farmhouses....

.....And their buggy stable.

A close-up view.

Notice the lightpost - powered by either gas or electricity - yep, electricity! Many had electricity and some even had cell phones!!

Here we are heading into the store-front of one of the woodworking shops.
On display were beautiful kitchen cabinets, bedroom sets, mantels and various other peices of furniture.

This was the gas lamp used to light the bathroom at the furniture shop.