Day 1

We were able to start our trip north early afternoon on Friday, we drove to Mt Pleasant Iowa a few hours away and called it a night.   Mt Pleasant was the picture of small town middle America, the court house sits in the middle of town with all local stores lined up on Main Street (and their still open too), seeing small town sights like this always makes me think of growing up in a small town.  We stayed in a lovely hotel and had a nice dinner at a local restaurant, Steve was thrilled when he saw they were serving not only walleye but stuff walleye.

We got up and headed out early on Saturday and headed to Amana, arriving about 10 am, just in time to spurge at the bakery with hot breakfast rolls.   Amana is a Mennonite settlement in the Amana Colonies, were until about 1950 they still lived in a commune life style.  We spent our day shopping the many shops and sampling everything from the wine to smoke pork chops.   We had a wonderful dinner at a communal dining hall where everything is severed family styled.  Needless to say the table was full of bowls of many different and new things to try.  We spent the night in one of the many bed and breakfasts in the area, the one we stayed in is the oldest of them, once being the stage coach stop over for Amana.  We enjoyed this stop so much that we will go back and visit Amana again.

Here are a few photos from our trip, remember click on them to enlarge.