Nappanee

We knew we were close to Nappanee before we saw a single building, slowing behind a black buggy clopping along the shoulder of a county road, its driver in a straw hat lifting a hand in an unhurried wave as we passed. This corner of Elkhart and Kosciusko counties holds one of the largest Amish and Mennonite communities in the country, and Nappanee sits right in the middle of it, a small town where roadside stands sell produce on the honor system and hitching posts stand outside the grocery store parking lot without anyone finding it strange.

Amish Acres and the farm

Amish Acres, a restored 1873 farmstead just outside downtown, gives visitors the closest thing to a formal introduction to the culture around it — a working farm with a round barn, threshing demonstrations, and a restaurant serving family-style Amish cooking heavy on ham, noodles, and shoo-fly pie. We skipped the guided tour and just wandered the grounds, watching a blacksmith work near the barn while the smell of bread baking drifted out from the farmhouse kitchen. It felt less like a museum exhibit and more like a place that simply hadn’t stopped doing what it always did.

Quilt shops and Main Street

Downtown, a handful of quilt shops stock work stitched by hand in homes throughout the county, prices that reflect the hundreds of hours behind each piece. Lia spent the better part of an hour in one shop’s back room going through folded stacks while the owner, a Mennonite woman who didn’t push a single sale, talked us through which patterns came from which families. We left with a lap quilt in deep blues and a loaf of bread from a bakery two doors down that sold out most afternoons by two.

Getting There

The closest airport is South Bend International (SBN), about forty minutes north via US-6 and Indiana 19. A car is essential, and worth driving carefully — this is buggy country, and slow-moving vehicle triangles on the back roads aren’t decorative. Indianapolis International (IND) works as an alternative, roughly two hours south.