Our trip last week to The Amana Colonies in Iowa to celebrate our meeting 5 yrs ago was wonderful but left both of us rather worn out and behind on things that we needed to get done when we got back here last Thursday Evening. My trying to sort through what pictures to post did contribute to the delay. BTW Here is a link to find more information about the Amana Colonies if you are interested. amanacolonies.com
We chose to go there because it had many good growing up memories for Diane and it is a rather unique place in its own right. It was about a 4 hour drive, 180 miles or 300Km from here. We arrived and checked into our hotel about 4pm. Got settled in and and after some relaxing from the drive we went to dinner at a place, The Ox Yoke Inn, Diane's parents would take the family for special occasions such as birthdays, graduation celebrations etc. One could order the meal "Family Style" where all of the sides are served in separate bowls to be shared out between those at the table. We ordered our meal that way choosing Ham, from among several different meats, as our main course. We could have gotten pretty much the same meal on one plate but doing it Family Style included too many memories, as well as dessert, for Diane to do it any other way. The meal was a delight and so were the memories Diane shared and other conversation we had while eating. Did a bit of driving about the town to see what the options were for where to have breakfast. There were a lot of options with several Coffee shop/Bakeries to full on Breakfast Cafes. We talked over what place looked the most promising to go to before heading back to the hotel for an evening of R&R.
Wednesday we went the Bakery/Coffee shop we had chosen the evening before. The coffee and pastries were great and the selection of fresh breads and other goodies caused us to decide to be sure to come back there the next day to pick up some of the breads before heading for home. (I picked up 2 loaves before we left town, a loaf of German Black Bread and a loaf of Multi-grain Parmesan Garlic. They are now in my freezer.)
After our light breakfast we visited several other shops and then decided to ramble around to the other six villages that make up the Amana Colonies. We stopped at an art co-op and museum in one of the villages. Turns out the museum proper was upstairs but there were several women taking a painting class in a room with several painting on the walls. Diane asked if we could look at the paintings in that room if we were quiet and was cheerily told we were very welcome to do so. We managed to drive through several of the other villages but not all. In another village we stopped at a delightful shop in a converted old barn as many shops and restaurants are, that specialized in quilts, quilting fabrics and related goods. We were impressed by the quality of the fabrics and by some of the quilts. PonyGirl, I commented to Diane that you would love this place. I also made sure to take several pictures there and am posting a few in a comment to this post.
Moving on to the next village we sort of got lost and ended up taking an completely enjoyable ramble on several very dusty gravel back roads. When we finally found out way back to Amana, the main town, we were starving and had lunch in another interesting old place. Sometime in that day we stopped for coffee at a chocolate shop. The coffee went very well with the bit of chocolate raspberry fudge I purchased there. It was difficult to resist buying some the other goodies.
Here are a few pictures from Amana and at least one other village.
This picture is part of the art building/museum I mentioned. The art class was in the stone part of the building on the right.
The colony was established as a cooperative community with community kitchens, housing, storehouses, barns, etc. I am not sure is this is now a private house, community home or what but there are a lot of buildings made of this very interesting sandstone construction. Also most of the older buildings have many additions to them. Some of wood construction and the apparently newer additions of red brick.
This is where Diane and I had our coffee and fudge. You may notice that the building on the right has a vertical trellis attached to the wall. Many of the older buildings have such trellises. Apparently they were used to grow food that needed such support and did not waste any space.
Diane and I both had eaten sausage with at least one meal. All of the eating places used locally processed meats. We stopped at this place on our way out of town and purchased some of the local brats an summer sausage to take home for us and for gifting.
Wednesday evening after going out for a somewhat early dinner we wanted to get a picture or two of the moon rising over the hotel. That of course meant going out just before sundown. Well, when we got outside we saw that clouds would prevent that but presented some great pictures. Here are a few I took then of the hotel exterior.
This shows the approach to the entrance courtyard. The hotel occupies buildings over a 100 years old that used to be an old woolen mill. That tall cylinder you see is the chimney for what I presume was the heating plant and for steam to run the mill's power. That building has 1923 set into its brickwork.
This picture is a view of the part of the hotel where the base of the chimney showing in the first picture. Diane was more interested in taking pictures of some storm clouds highlighted in the sunset glow.
Seems the old mill had a lot of connecting wings and additions over time or maybe it was just planned the way. This is a shot from the other side of the white building at the far end of the entrance courtyard with the chimney showing behind it.
I do believe I may have dragged this post on to long so I shall wind it up. We took a lot of pictures many from inside the hotel. The halls had various places for people just to talk and were decorated with old tools, machines and examples of items used or produced by the old mill. We had what they called an executive room. A good size with a very large bathroom. The shower was big enough for at least 4 people to share. The glass front and door of it provided and interesting reflection. I seem to have a fascination with taking pictures of my partial reflection of late. Nude of course. Took a few just for the hell of it and found I could get some interesting results when I played with the light, contrast and color values. I am posting a few such in a comment below the one I am posting pictures of the quilt shop.
Now to try to catch up and reply to comments on my post last week. Hope you all have a great summer.
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12 comments
What a great Post
Glad you liked post. Hope you liked the pictures in the post and in the comments.
Hugs!
@justskin1 Will do
Now that was a nice ramble with all the good food and interesting stops in, of course, great company. Who can resist chocolate shops? 😁
It was a lovely trip and ramble. Resisting a chocolate shop does not make sense. The coffee was good and the exquisite bit of chocolate raspberry fudge made it even better. Of course, having the perfect person to share all the fun with made the trip a perfect one.
Sending you big naked hugs.
How interesting. I have to admit I didn't know it was a cooperative, for some reason I thought it was a religious community (probably because we have Amish communities in southern Minnesota).
It is, or at least was founded as a religious community but one where all was owned and shared in common. I know that changed in the middle 1900s. Not sure just what the status is today.
Hugs
Nice pics, so glad you had a great trip! My grandma and stepmother made quilts, so I loved those pictures the most. There was a Quilt Conference going on in Pigeon Forge when we were there, but we did not visit. I'm more of a counted cross stitch girl.
Happy to hear you liked the pictures. I knew more people than PonyGirl would love the pictures of the Quilt/Fabric shop. My mom made a quilt for each of us children in her last years. the one she gave me is in all the wrong colors for my taste and the cloth was not sturdy but I treasure it.
Sending you big naked hugs and may y'all have a great summer.
I love old buildings and the sandstone. They seem like comfort buildings. Maybe they remind me of childhood. Thank you so much for sharing your trip with us. I enjoy reading and seeing it all.
Hugs!!
Many of the buildings were of old sandstone with cedar clapboard sided additions or all cedar clapboard with additions. I wanted to add this close-up of a bit of old weathered sandstone, from the meat market, in my post or comments but ran out of room and time. The look was just too interesting to not take a picture of it.
Sending you big naked hugs!
Your pictures and words highlight your wonderful 5 year celebration. Cheers 🥂 to many more.
Thank you. It is good to know you enjoyed the story and pictures. I certainly hope we have many more. She was a bit worried that I might be bored going to a place with so many good memories for her. As we both have so many similar likes that was not going to happen, Now we both have some memories of there together.
Sending you big hugs.
Telling a good story takes all the time it needs.
I love the egret quilt!
Thank you. I agree that the egret quilt was awesome and a prime example of a quilt meant to be hung up like art and not to wrap up in.
Hugs!
It's interesting how distances are seen between Americans and Brits. A four-hour drive is long distance to us but seemingly a short-distance to you.
It is all so relative. I suspect that if you cross the Channel you may need to get dig out your passport if you drove 4 hours. zZ
PonyGirl I had to include these pictures as I know how much you enjoy quilting and such. Not sure if you can see it but the Egret quilt has some interesting mossy stitching effects to some of the feathers and the water reflections. All of the cow body are actual patches not a print.
Thank you so much!! The quilts are just glorious!!! And I love the fabric displays. I pet the bolts of fabric. Thank you so much for thinking of me!! You are very special! Hugs!!!
Hope you find these pics interesting. It was fun seeing how changing the values affected the look. I did not change any values in the first picture but included it so you could see how much changed. Just cropped it a bit. The next two are of the same picture but with values skewed. One toward blue one toward the red.
The last two used different original pictures that were taken after I turned on the light over the sink. The lights wrapped around the mirror.
Hope you found the effects as interesting as I did.
Wow! The colors really change the look. You look like you're on fire - red hot. So incredible!
@PonyGirl1965 Glad you liked the effects. I admit I love taking pictures of me reflected in unusual ways. This lent themselves to some extreme and fun manipulation. As I mentioned all of the original pictures were pretty much as bland as the first one. I admit I was a bit surprised at the effects I got.
Sending you big flaming naked hugs.