Theatre

The star was a girl from our kids high school, Hononegah High!

Hilarious play!

Marshall town, Iowa

They are building a huge energy plant and we took a very rare tour. One of the men at the rally is the big boss and he took us on an amazing tour but NO PICTURES except the one he took of me and our group picture. 

Amana, Iowa

We are visiting the National Historic Landmark Amana Colonies in Iowa and learned a bit of their history. 

The seven Amana Colonies in Iowa started in 1855 as a home to the 800 members of the Society of True Inspirationists.  This group wanted to worship God in their own way; a communal style of living with everyone being equal. 

Each member gave everything to the Elders of the Church so they could purchase 26,000 acres in Iowa. Each of the seven colonies was built with a nondescript church in the center, large dorm style homes surrounded the church with the barns surrounding the homes. Members attended church at least 11 times a week. Cemeteries were built on the perimeter of town. The colonies are about 4 miles apart and all the land outside the villages was used as farm land. Members handed down skills in the Old World tradition, from father to son and from mother to daughter. They operated the farms woolen mills, calico plant, meat shops, cabinet shops, wineries, community kitchens and other industries. There was no payment because everything was provided by fellow members of the community. In the communal kitchen ladies cooked three meals and two snacks for each person on a daily basis, health care was provided, living quarters were provided along with electric, water,  and heat. When a person died they were laid to rest, in a pine box, in the cemetery of their colony. Head stones are arranged in the order of death. Each stone has the persons name, date they passed and their age in years and months.

In 1932 the Amana Colonies went through what they termed The Great Change. Each member was given shares to use to purchase their own homes that had their own kitchen. The Amana Society was created to manage the farms and businesses, and the Amana Church Society handled religious matters. All members of the community were promised free health care for life and the Society has honored this promise.

Today the center of the villages look much like they did in 1855, but the outskirts have more modern homes. Amana, the largest village, is quaint but commercial. Middle, High, West, East, and South Amana look much like they did in 1855 and are not as commercial. Homestead has a train station and that is the reason this land was purchased. 

Homes grew grapes on their sides

Entegra

Our first dinner with our new Entegra friends. Great dinner of BBQ shrimp wrapped in bacon and apricot sauce with chicken salad puffs and bacon wrapped water chestnuts. This was followed by Ratatouille stuffed with goat cheese and roasted vegetables and assorted cheesecake! Great dinner!!

Iowa

Huge Iowa truck stop with great restrooms so check the restrooms blog!

We have visitors

We are having a fun time with friends we met in FL! The RV has helped us to meet so many amazing people!!

Paint Party

We painted, ate and some even drank. For me drinking and painting didn't go together so I just ate! Hope & Anchor Restaurant replaced the famous Mayflower.

Navy Pier and the Odyssey

Great night on Navy Pier with great friends!I

Just a normal day

September 14, 2016

We began the day with a trip to the YMCA to workout. We both use ActivTrax, a program that gives individual workouts. After our hour and a half workout we decided to skip the bike riding portion and come home and ride our real bikes outside! We rode on the trail 12 1/2 miles. It was a beautiful day and we had a refreshing ride. We have not been riding our bikes since FL. After our ride we both cleaned our bikes because they were real dusty from sitting in the garage all summer.

Duf finished the day replacing the garage door that he hit with the boat and I made pillow cases for Natalie to sell on the website. I had some Halloween material and it made cute pillows so we shall see.

For dinner Duf grilled the last of our Mirai sweet corn and it was delicious. 

Fun facts

How many beans does it take to make a pound of chocolate?

How many almonds are in Hershey milk chocolate with almond bars?

Where did HB Reese start his candy company?

In what year did Hershey acquire Reese's company?

Day of tours

We began the day with a tour of America's oldest brewery. Pottsville, PA is on a hill and quite quaint. We toured tunnels where it is a constant temperature and a bit humid. This area was selected because of the spring water and ease of digging the tunnels.

We then toured Hershey!! The tour is like a ride at Disney! Great fun and learned all about chocolate.

Wednesday

oday Bettye and I attended a seminar about all our cell phones are capable of doing. We got some interesting apps and new ideas to try with the phone. We walked our ten thousand steps while looking around the vendor area.

The Atkinson Tavern is a late 18th century building moved to this historic area. We had drinks and a delicious prime rib dinner there tonight.

Entegra

Our new motorhome

Tuesday

Today Duf and I walked the entire grounds of the Big E and then we met the others for a tour of an historic 1800 village. The tour ended with a pint in the ale house.

It is Mark n Bettye's anniversary! Bettye spent the day with us while Mark got the run around all over town looking for a battery. He is now scheduled to have one put in at 7:30 AM tomorrow.

We had a huge happy hour with people we have met. We teased Mr Romance Mark because he was so frazzled by all he has been through that hordorves were the anniversary dinner!!