We traveled the Colonies yesterday looking at all the sites and of course spending too much money on things that we could have done without (like wine)!!  The trail around the
Colonies is about 17 miles long.  You travel it by car.  We ran into some locals from Iowa that said a lot of the good restaurants and shops had closed or went out of business in the last 10 years.  But we found a woolen shop that was great and also a furniture maker that was very good.  Expensive but good quality furniture.  They also have a good meat shop and we bought some breakfast meat and other goodies there.  Some of the buildings date back about 150 years according to the merchants running them now.  Some of the villages are not as big as the others and they had nothing of interest open when we went through there.  In case you did not see the other post there are seven different villages that make up the Colonies.  It looked as though each one had a post office even though they were only a couple miles from each other.  One village had a furniture shop with a broom maker inside and a huge rocker in a building that housed a museum for basket weavers.  (I do not remember any of their names)  They had some great baskets in there.  You will see the photos of me rocking Cindy to sleep.  We started to buy it but I do not think the Kayak rack would hold it to get it home.

These are some of the older homes in Middle Amana.

 Another furniture store located in Amana the biggest village or town.

 Another street in Amana with the woolen factory at the end of the street.

 Spinning yarn into a blanket.  This equipment is old.  I know because as a young lad I worked in a textile factory with one just like it.

Well of course they sell wine here!!  Cindy laid down under the barrel trying to catch a few drops of the good stuff!!

Tomorrow is a travel day and we go to our last stop on this trip.  We will be staying at Louisville KOA campground.  Hoping to get a good tour of the horse farms around there and also see the Kentucky Derby grounds or Churchill Downs as it is called.  We are there for about 6 days and will tour some of the breweries and then head home for a few days before going to see my sister in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.  Really looking forward to that trip.