Did Someone Say 900 Vendors?

We started our day at a Chicago Diner visited by Guy Fieri from "Diners, Drive-ins & Dives."  Scrumptious!

Then we headed into Amish country in Indiana.  One place I wanted to go was Yoder's Department Store and the other was the Flea Market which has over 900 vendors.  I've written about Yoders at www.weyburnquiltguild.blogspot.ca since I was there to adore their fabric department and my quilt friends may be more interested in that than most of you.

 

Amish country is really interesting and this area is less commercialized than Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but let me tell you this is plenty commercialized too.  The Amish seem to continue their quiet, plain lives amidst the tourism which is mainly generated because they live here.

 

Their buggies mix in with traffic and most ordinary stores have hitching posts.  Even the WalMart in Goshen has hitching posts.  Lots of Amish use bicycles as well and none of the bikes are modern in any way.

When we came to this flea market 30 years ago, the vendors mainly had antiques and vintage wares.  There are some of those mixed in now, but a lot of the booths sell stuff the dollar stores can't get rid of.  Then there are the booths of Avon, Tupperware, Watkins, etc.  The other thing that's changed is that the vendors have fancy tents and there are some wooden structures rather than the scatter-everything-on-the-ground in days of yore.  Do I sound old if I mention I liked the old market better?  However, people watching is just as good as it ever was.

 And look, if I run out of clean underwear, I could get new stuff at the flea market!

 Fiona, oh, Fiona, I know that Finn is totally smitten with you just the way you are, but perhaps a hat would add to your already established charm.

General businesses outdo themselves with their planters.  These are outside a restaurant.  My photographer missed getting the bottom of the planter which is a wagon.

 We had hoped to eat at two "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" today but the one in Goshen closed at 8 and we weren't ready to eat until quarter to so there wasn't enough time.
We did, however, eat a great meal which ended with raspberry cream pie.

The next photo will show you whether it was good or not.

 I was tempted to lick the plate!
Couldn't figure out why this Amish buggy needed a gas station until I spotted the young couple inside the store stocking up on junk food.

 Indiana is a beautiful state.