Checking in with friends. . .

Wednesday we drove from Goshen over to St. Paris, Ohio, to see our friends, Tab and Deanna. They are the friends who went to Alaska with us. It was great to see them and catch up with what everyone had been doing in the past year.

They have a house in St. Paris and they have been doing some remodeling. They put in an entirely new kitchen which is really gorgeous. Tab did a lot of the work himself and he did a great job. Deanna has all new cabinets and new appliances. I'm sure they will enjoy it.

We parked over at Tab's shop and got all set up. After Tab got off work, we all went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It was really good. We haven't eaten at one for awhile and they had a lot of new menu items. I had rainbow trout and Terry had a salad. Yum yum.

Last night we ate in and then went out for dessert. That's Tab and Deanna's favorite meal, I think. We went to the restaurant down the road. They all had apple dumplings a la mode and I had a root beer float. It was all very good.

We said our goodbyes this morning and we traveled toward Indiana. It started raining at one point and was actually raining pretty hard. But by the time we got to Berne, the rain had mostly stopped. We are camped at Amishville and had to switch campsites because the first one he gave us would not allow us to level. It was a short narrow site that ran downhill and to the one side. I don't know what these people are thinking when they put a 40-er in that kind of space. So we went back to the office and fortunately, they had plenty of other sites we would fit in and that were quite level. We got set up and had lunch before heading out.

We have been through Berne numerous times when we lived in central Indiana but never spent any time here. There are a lot of Amish here and one big difference in these Amish and the northern Indiana Amish are in their buggies. Here they are not allowed to ride in enclosed buggies, so their transportation is all buckboard type wagons. I would be moving if the parson told me that. But they are a hardy group and we saw a lot of Amish out and in the various markets we went to. We were looking for gluten free noodles. I have only seen them in Amish stores and I hit the jackpot at Troyers. I got several packages. They were cheaper than I have found before and I stocked up so I have some in reserve.

We visited several Amish stores, dry goods and grocery, and enjoyed our time visiting with the people.

Till next time. . .

Dale