Heritage Trail

We drove the Heritage Trail yesterday and it was a beautiful drive. We saw a lot of Amish communities, the Amish people as well as regular farms along this trail. It is obvious that the farmers and the Amish people take a lot of pride in their homes and land from the neatness and beautiful landscaping in the entire area.

We had lunch at the Das Dutchman Essenhaus Restaurant and visited the bakery there also. Picked up two half pies (German Chocolate and Egg Custard), a fresh baked load of bread and some dill bread (looking forward to trying this one out!). The food at the restaurant was wonderful!!!

There were several shops around the restaurant with lots of interesting items. I especially enjoyed seeing the quilts for sale. We saw one that was over $1200. It was beautiful but it didn’t come home with us!! We also visited Yoder’s Meat & Cheese Company and picked up some steaks and ground beef. We had used all that we brought with us from home on this trip and needed to restock. That freezer we have in our basement is wonderful!!

We took lots of pictures along the Heritage Trail but you will notice that there are not any of the Amish people. They do not believe in being photographed so we honored that. We did get pictures of their horse drawn wagons and some of their horses. You will notice that there are some very large horses and these are used to work in the fields. They look a lot like the Budweiser Clydesdales. The smaller, more slender horses are used to pull their wagons. One of the unique things that we noticed was that a lot (not all)  of these horses were bridled even when just in a pasture. Must have something to do with the fact that they are work horses.

We passed through several towns / communities along this trail and I will try to get the names matched to our pictures below.

I also have included a couple of pictures of the Elkhart Campground. We really like this campground due to the large, level sites and the general location. It is convenient to a lot of shopping and restaurants in Elkhart.

Downtown Bristol

Bonneyville Mill Park – This is Indiana’s oldest continuously operating gristmill. They just recently had the Bonneyville Mill Celebration which is like an old country fair.

Middlebury

Das Dutchman Essenhaus Restaurant and Bakery

The Covered Bridge

Some of the beautiful flowers in Middlebury

Shipshewana to Goshen

The Hitching Posts

The Horses

One of the Farms

We also drove through Nappanee and Wakarusa, two other small towns along the trail and then returned to Elkhart.

Elkhart Campground

I included a lot of our pictures here but, just in case you are interested, here is a link to all of our pictures from the day..

The Heritage Trail and Elkhart Campground