The Amana Colonies

I know - you are asking "What are the Amana Colonies?"  We were!  When I was planning our southward route, I saw Amana and remembered that I had read something in one of our travel magazines about it being a good place to visit.  My brother knew about it, but only that it has a great golf course that he plays with his buddies each spring.  When we pulled into the Amana Colonies RV Park, the camp hosts told us that there was a lot to see.  For you campers, I highly recommend the RV park - it is huge (450 spots), offers lots of amenities and is very reasonably priced (accepts Good Sam, AAA, Escapees & Passport America discounts). 

The Amana Colonies are seven villages on 26,000 acres just south of Cedar Rapids, IA.  They were originally settled by German Pietists, "the Community of True Inspiration", in 1856.  For eighty years they lived a communal life, remaining almost totally self sufficient.  They lived in communal housing, ate in communal kitchens.  Men and women were expected to work and were assigned their jobs by the Elders; they attended church 11 times a week; children went to school six days a week until they were 14, then went to work.  A few boys were sent to college to become doctors, dentists or whatever the village needed.  The "Great Change" occurred in 1931 when they split into two entities, one non-profit, the other a corporation for profit, which allowed for more personal freedom.  This is when companies like Amana Refrigeration started.  Because the land & communal buildings are owned by the corporation, many of them are still in use today for shops, B&B's, restaurants, etc. 

 

There are a lot of locally made crafts, beautiful hand made furniture, a woolen mill and

food items like jams, jellies, mustards, sausage and cheese.

Notice the old car coming towards me!

Everything is very well kept, obviously it is still a very close community.  Most houses have beautiful yards, vegetable gardens - all is clean and neat.

It's hard to believe so many of these old buildings are still standing.

This is a communal house that housed several families.

The Visitor's Center is in the nearest gray barn, and a great quilt shop is in the white and gray building at the end of the road.  You can buy beautiful locally made quilts or incredible fabrics to create your own.

 

You can drive or ride bikes around the 17 mile loop to all of the villages.  Each has

shops and things to see.

This was a windmill with an animated farmer sawing wood - sadly, right after I took the picture the wind was blowing so hard that he broke.

His faithful horse team.

 

The basket lady at the Broom & Basket Shop

 

Ron with the World's Largest Bentwood Rocker

They used these canals to transport supplies & finished products, so the bridges were made so they could be dismantled to get the barges through.

And, of course, we found the wineries and breweries.  They specialize in fruit wines, so a little on the sweet side, but we managed to find some cranberry wines we liked. 

 

I'm trying to remember to post where we are headed, so if anyone is coming our way, maybe we can get together.  We are heading south through northwest Missouri, then to Tulsa, Oklahoma to catch the end of the US National Arabian Horse show.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Minnesota

We finished up our northern loop at one of our favorite events, Carlos Creek Winery's Grape Stomp with my brother, Jeff and his wife, Kathy.  The kickoff was "The Dweebs" concert/dance on Friday night.

Wine & beer flowing, we danced, watched the Dweebs-costumed & energetic-and built a much admired plastic cup pyramid! Kathy kept the sign for future use:)

Saturday we headed out to the stomp.

We did our tasting with several thousand other people, then headed out to browse the vendor tents & see the entertainment.  Guido likes his new sleep sack!

The winery is beautiful, and we loved catching up with Jessi & Matt and the Sanford family!

The week after the Stomp, Jeff & I collaborated to make a clock for the trailer out of a piece of old barn wood.  Kathy had the genius idea to used wood burning for the numbers.  Thanks, you two, love our clock.

Fall Fest was the first weekend in October this year.  Ron & I enjoy working the show and catching up with our horsey friends.  From there, we headed back to Brooke & Johnny's for a whirlwind week of projects to get done before we head South. The week finished with a fundraising event at the farm for "Hold Your Horses", a therapeutic riding group operating out of Bel Farms, and the Creighton family dinner on Sunday.

Love seeing these kiddos - Owen, Savannah  & Maci and (not in the pic) Delaney.
Our first stop heading south was Hidden Bluffs RV Resort, a beautiful park near Spring Grove, MN.

Neither Ron or I had been to the southeastern corner of Minnesota, and were amazed by the beautiful bluffs, and of course, the fall colors.  We visited Lanesboro, which is a cute town that caters to tourists with antique stores, shops, fantastic bike trails and great scenery.

The falling leaves and the increasingly cooler weather was a big reminder to keep heading south.

 

Next stop, Dyersville, Iowa - home of the movie set for "Field of Dreams".  As we headed south, we drove through many small towns including Guttenberg, which is on the bluffs of the Mississippi River.  The leaf colors were incredible - it was an unexpected, beautiful drive.

 

Ron is a huge baseball fan & we are both huge movie fans, so despite the cool windy weather, we loved seeing the "Field of Dreams".  The baseball field is still maintained by the family that owns the farm & they still live in the house and farm the farm.   I was happy all of the corn wasn't harvested yet - the corn around the field was all still standing.

 

As we headed back through the town of Dyersville, I noticed a sign for "Basilica"; and, since I love old churches & cemeteries, we followed the signs.  We certainly didn't expect to find this in a town as small as Dyersville.

 

The Basilica of St. Francis Xavier.

It is a Gothic style, built in the 1800's and restored in the 1990's & early 2000's. The interior is incredible, with beautiful stained glass windows, intricately carved wooden confessionals & altars, paintings & decorative painting very like the cathedrals of Europe. 

It was a fun day, but when the temps hit 25 degrees that night, we were ready to head further south.  Next stop, the Amana Colonies.