Thursday, October 10, 2019

Amana Colonies, Iowa


We left Door County and began our journey south, but we were still pointed west . . . not quite ready to head to Florida yet.  It was a beautiful day as we traveled along the coast of Green Bay.











After a quick stopover in Oshkosh, WI, at a nice little campground next to the prison . . . .












with a beautiful sunset over the neighboring farm field,




we had a foggy start to our second day of driving.  We traversed the state of Wisconsin, through farm fields and small towns, enjoying the smaller state highways, rather than a larger interstate.









At the Mississippi River, we crossed into Iowa,










and once again taking the state highways through the rolling farmland, we were surprised to see just how beautiful Iowa was.  We saw lots of barns and cows . . . and corn . . . but it was all quite beautiful and beginning to look like fall.













It was a long travel day for us – 275 miles – but a beautiful day for a drive, and we made great time, arriving at the Amana Colonies RV Park in the early afternoon.














Saturday was the Apfelfest (Apple Fest in German), and even though rain was forecast for most of the day, we headed out after breakfast for the “tasting tour” . . . many of the shops in town had apple snacks that they were offering, and if you got your card stamped by 7 of them, you could enter a raffle for a $100 Amana Colonies gift card.


 

It reminded me a lot of Shipshewana, except not Amish – there were antique shops, bakeries, fudge shops, and several wineries.


We visited all the wineries and tasted the wines at all of them . . . and took several bottles home with us!  They featured many sweeter wines and wines mixed with other fruits, both of which we prefer.


We were dodging rain much of the day (so it was a good thing we didn’t go with our original plan of riding our bikes into town), but it wasn’t too bad.





The Amana Woolen Mill makes some really beautiful blankets and other things for the home, and it was one of my favorite shops.













and they have a couple of antique looms on display in the shop, too.



We visited the coffee and tea shop, the meat store (where we got some beautiful smoked pork chops for our dinner) and the General Store which flowed right into the Christmas Store.



The Christmas Shop was amazing – with several rooms full of every Christmas theme you could think of . . .











Nutcrackers


The Grinch


and even a tree full of donut ornaments!


The Amana Colonies is actually made up a 7 small villages, which altogether had operated as a commune for several decades for a group of German immigrants.   In the mid-20th Century, the commune style of life was abandoned and a corporation was formed to own and maintain the community property, and individuals were allowed to own homes and businesses on their own.  We spent most of our time in Amana (the main village, where 90% of the businesses are located), but also took a driving tour of the others – it’s only a 7-mile loop.

We found the broom & basket shop,













where the largest walnut rocking chair is located,



and a really cute Antique/Quilt Shop that I really enjoyed visiting – Fern Hill Gifts. 

One thing that they don’t have in Amana is a grocery store . . . we had to drive 20 minutes to the next closest town that had a grocery store so I could get carrots for the beef stew I was making for dinner the next day!  We got them, though, and our beef stew was a perfect dinner on an extremely rainy day . . . I got some sewing done that day, too, so it was a good day.

The Amana Colonies were not a place we had planned to visit, but it was a very enjoyable stop in our travels and we are glad we discovered it!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading! We'd love to hear your comments!