Indiana - nice state

​INDIANA
Exek 4:9a Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet….
I guess this is what you call the “Midwest” or “the Breadbasket of the US”. Several of these states in the Midwest area may seem not as interesting, but they are the lifeline of America. As a farmer’s daughter, I love driving hours and seeing the corn or wheat or bean fields that stretch out endlessly. You see corn; I see hundreds and thousands of people headed for the grocery store – and all supplied (when you follow the foodchain line back) by these hard-working farmers who spend thousands of hours and dollars hoping the crops will do well. Many Amish live in northcentral Indiana so you need to be on the lookout for buggies. I taught here for three years, and my biggest fear was that I might accidentally hit a buggy sometime. The area I lived in didn’t have shoulders on the roads. The Amish are required to have battery-operated lights for their buggies, but sometimes some of them try to save on the life of their battery by only turning them on when a vehicle gets close. I had that happen a couple times after dark, and it gave me quite a jolt to suddenly see lights appear right in front of me and I had to brake pretty hard.
Of course, if you are not interested in farms, there are plenty of other things to see as Indiana is a fair-sized state. The Shipshewana area is a huge tourist spot with loads of little shops that sell anything and everything. If you get a chance, you need to try “Elephant Ears”! (Our youth group went there one fall to help at the MCC Relief sale. We were in charge of the sausage booth, and the elephant ears booth. I started in the elephant ears, but had to transfer to the sausage booth as the temptation to eat all the profits was too great! That deep-fried cinnamon sugar pastry just melts in your mouth.)I enjoyed going to northern Indiana for a day now and then, but it was way too crowded for me to want to live there.  The Ft Wayne area was bad enough with traffic. If you head south you get down into more rolling hills. Down in the Burns area they have some amazing Thanksgiving weekend traditions that I got to enjoy with a friend and her family one year. For sports lovers, Indianapolis has the race track – a friend lived in that area and told me she either has to be gone the entire day, or plan to stay in the entire day when the Indy 500 is on. I would definitely choose to be away – the incessant buzz of the cars would have driven me batty! Of course being the Hoosier state, you can’t avoid basketball; I even attended a Harlan Globetrotters game while there, and I rarely go to concerts or sports events.