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.