Our Rotary District 9710 Friendship Exchange with Rotary District 6540 (Northern Indiana), started in
Chicago. We met five people that we did not know from Canberra, Cooma and Berry.
Doug met us
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| Doug did a great job in bringing everything together |
and after packing the luggage we followed him in our RV to Elkhart
some 200 Kms to the east.
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| Friendship Exchange group - Garry, Jen, Frank, Pam and Phil, Marilyn and Darrell |
The exchange was over two weeks and we were billeted
with four hosts in four different towns so we were back to packing and living
out of a suitcase. We were very grateful that we were able to leave our RV with
the first hosts, Kathy and Jim.
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| Kathy and Jim |
Their home is on
ten acres of a wooded area.
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| Garry got to fire a 44 magnum - and actually hit a target |
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| Jim has a trout stream on his property and we went fishing and Garry actually caught two small trout which went back for next time. |
Elkhart Rotary Club has a twenty year plan to clean
up a derelict “wellfield” area.
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| A Taste of the Gardens - Food, drink, live music and artwork |
The wells used to supply the town with their
water but the area had become polluted and overgrown.
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| Wellfield Gardens |
They are establishing new
garden “rooms” as funds become available. The Saturday was a fundraising day, “Taste
of the Gardens”, with craft and food stalls and more than 5000 people visited on a
bright and sunny day.
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| Luncheon tent with balloons |
The gardens were so beautiful and varied over the 50 or
so acres. Memorials and sculptures, benches and walkways circle the lake, and
little bridges cross the small creek taking you to a different view. A most
beautiful place.
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| Entrance artwork |
More than $50,000 was raised which will be put back into establishing
more gardens and places of beauty. The two they are working on now are the sensory
garden and a children's garden.
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| Garden pond |
We were fortunate to have been at Elkhart for the
Annual Rotary Golf Day and after the weekly Rotary meeting, which was addressed by the Mayor of Indianapolis, Garry played with sixty starters.
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| Exchange of Banners at Elkhart Rotary Club |
Kathy had a friend at Concord Eastside Elementary School so Jen was
able to spend the arvo with her and Grade 1.
Many
activities in each of the areas were organised for us; visits to the Jayco RV
factory,
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| Tour of the Jayco Factory - sides for a 36ft 5th wheel RV |
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| Storage at the Jayco plant - ready for dispatch |
an historical house of the Beardsley family, (early settlers)
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| Beardsley Home in Elkhart |
and
exploring the Amish area of Shipshewana, named honouring a Potawatomi Indian
Chief. Isn’t that a lovely name for a town?
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| Amish wagon with trailer outside the Furniture shop |
The Flea Market had over 1000
sellers
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| Soft Pretzel made to order |
but nearby was a most wonderful furniture store that sold products of
the Amish/Mennonite community.
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| Surveyor's Clock - one for Jeff Brown |
We spent an hour just looking at the beautiful workmanship.
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| Horse memories... |
The
Menno-Hof Museum tells the Amish/Mennonite/Hutterite Story from the beginning
of the Anabaptist movement during the Reformation in 16th Century
Europe. “Anabaptist” means to “re-baptise” and the believers called for
voluntary adult baptism at a time when the state allowed only infant baptism.
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| Amish-Mennonite Museum Entrance |
The
Museum followed the persecution, imprisonment and torture and their eventual
migration to the New World when William Penn invited them to come. Successive
waves of migration brought settlers to farm the Northern States and Canada
until 20th Century.
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| Cast of "The Confession" - not real Amish, just actors |
There
was a dinner/theatre play, “The Confession”, an Amish story, interwoven with
problems they face in today’s world, performed by professional actors, which we
really enjoyed.
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| Amish family going shopping |
Next
stop was Judy and Joe’s in the city of Fort Wayne, second only in population to
Indianapolis (the capital of Indiana) and known as the Three Rivers City.
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| Joe and Judy's Home |
They
lived in a lovely home with a small lake surrounded by trees.
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| With Joe and Judy at an "all American" ribs and pulled pork diner |
They are close to
the city so we did some interesting drives.
We saw the copy of the first fort
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| Reconstruction of Fort Wayne |
and some beautifully kept old homes and gardens in the historic district.
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| Historic Home |
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| Beautiful Gardens |
The
art gallery had a magnificent exhibition of Dean Chihuly glass – spectacular,
and we were treated to a tour by the curator.
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| Chihuly "Flowers" at the art museum |
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| Chihuly glass "Garden" |
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| Beautiful art glass pieces set off by great lighting |
The
Allen County Courthouse had a magnificent dome with light filtering through
stained glass ceilings. An $8 million restoration was completed in 2002 and the
sculptures, paintings, hand painted stencilling and plaster mouldings gilded
with gold, aluminium and copper leaf reflect the opulence of the era when it
was built.
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| Allen County Courthouse, Fort Wayne |
The four courtrooms were magnificent but photographs were not
allowed. The art deco building of the Lincoln Tower, now Towerbank, is 22
stories high, and has two lavish murals and elaborate brass detailing in the
foyer.
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| Lincoln Tower, Fort Wayne |
But
the highlight of Fort Wayne was the visit to a Frank Lloyd Wright home built in
1914. Alan, a Rotarian and architect, has owned it for 40 yrs and his wife
Maureen were happy to show us around.
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| Alan and Maureen's Home |
Alan had met Frank Lloyd Wright when he as an architectural student and he also
had a framed sketch of the house believed to have been drawn by Marion Mahony
(typical of her style).
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| Dining Room |
Walter Burley Griffin was listed as one of the
architects on the blueprint. It “blew us away”.
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| Beautiful stained glass windows |
We’ve
had pot luck dinners in each location – it gives us a chance to meet members of
the local club, in someone’s home and a chance for some local cuisine and
fellowship. Pulled pork, ribs and baked ham is popular and the corn was perfect
this time of year.
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| Great fresh produce from an Amish farm - what a great name! |
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| Shucking corn as our contribution to the pot luck dinner |
Everyone brings salads and sweets to share.
All
of the Rotary meetings we attended were held at lunchtime, (the most popular time
for Rotary meetings everywhere we have been,) and in Monticello Jerry took us
by boat.
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| On the way to Monticello Rotary meeting |
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| Exchange of banners at Monticello Rotary Club |
Jerry and Jeanie live on Lake Freeman, such a pretty setting, and we made
good use of the waterfront watching all sorts of watercraft and having a swim
(water was 26*C/ 81*F).
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| Lots of dinning options at Jerry's on the lake |
We drove around the area sightseeing and went for a
picnic by boat down the lake.
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| An afternoon out on the lake |
For something different Jerry and his mates cooked a
shrimp boil (of varying degrees of spiciness) for the pot luck in Monticello. The weather was just glorious
during our time in Indiana and we ate outside often.
There are National and State Parks along the foreshores
protecting the sand dunes.
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| Rocky Raccoon at the State Park |
These have been formed as the moraines from a huge
glacier that carved out the area millennia ago. With a decent breeze the waves
were breaking on the sand which was very similar in colour to the Sydney
beaches.
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| Labor Day crowds on the beach at Michigan City |
The water on the edge was fine for swimming and bouncing in the waves
– it just got cold a little further out. With temperatures similar to summer at
home it is hard to imagine snow piled up on the beach and ice along the edge in
winter.
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| Main Street downtown Chesterton |
Another place we visited was a working dairy and
pig farm showing modern farming techniques.
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| Fair Oaks rotary dairy |
The highlight was visiting the “birthing
barn” and during the time we were there a cow calved. We watched from tiered
seating through a glass wall as she was lying on thick straw with a “midwife”
present.
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| Calf being born at Fair Oaks |
As you would guess the ice cream here was pretty good.
Our last day was spent in Valparaiso (or Valpo to the
locals). A guided tour through the university buildings and chapel gave us an
insight into how important “giving” is here, from the past Alumni.
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| The Chapel at Valparaiso University |
Many new buildings
are funded by successful previous students and there’s a strong life commitment
to the university from which one has graduated.
At Taltree Arboretum and Gardens
the founder obviously had a passion for trains and has created a wonderful model with miniature trees and plants.
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| Taltrees railway network |
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| Tall Trees railway |
A walk around the lake completed a most wonderful visit to Indiana and we felt we could not thank our
hosts enough for the excellent organisation and variety of places we visited.
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| Chesterton pot luck dinner group - photo thanks to Trent |
Next year we hope some of those people we met will come
to Sydney, for the International Rotary Convention in June, and then we will
reciprocate and show them some of our wonderful country.
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