Amish Country! Lanesboro, Mn and surrounding towns.

OK, so I have been reading a lot about Amish people lately.  Makes for a very interesting read and I am very fascinated by their culture.  So since there were old order Amish in Minnesota, not so very far away from where we were going and because we had some time, we went to Amish land.  We headed to a town called Lanesboro in southeastern Minnesota.  Here is the downtown of Lanesboro:

Here are some more pictures of the area:

It is very green and VERY humid in this part of Minnesota.  Everything was wet in the morning, not from rain, but dew.  Forgot what dew even was!
Here is Brecklyn at our little hotel called Brewster's little red hotel.  It had a LOT of stairs.  Very casual check-in, and Amish furnishings in our room such as head boards, dresser shelves, etc.

Then  for a little night life across the street.

Lots of road construction, of course!  And a band and dinner across the way.  Here we ate on the back patio with a collection of fireflies to entertain along with the band.  At first Brecklyn didn't like them, but after a while she decided that they were pretty fun to watch and eventually try to catch and put in a container.

A quaint, quiet, Minnesota street.

The Root River runs along the patio part of the restaurant where we ate.

A few phone issues as Jamie's phone and my phone literally took turns getting zero reception.  Luckily we had different phone providers and when hers failed to work, mine did and vice-versa.

Looking out at the river.

Our hotel and we were on the 3rd level up.

The side-yard of the hotel, also had picnic tables and a fire pit, BBQ, etc.

Eating at the "little" diner.  Looked like a train car squeezed lengthwise between 2 buildings and as narrow as you see in this picture.  Home-style breakfast on the counter cooked as you ordered it.

We had a choice, to take the Amish bus tour or the Amish "self-guided" CD tour.  I opted for the latter.  Saved money and we could shop as we pleased.  Here a view of Amish farmland.

A little Amish school, there were many since the kids have to walk and everything was kind of far apart if you were on foot.

The Amish have big houses, lots of kids, ya know!

Last place on the tour was in Harmony, MN at the village Green.

There were many Amish shops on the way.  They are on their own property and of different types and sizes.  Some sell crafts, others produce, eggs, butter, quilts, furniture and such.  We stopped off at several and would have loved to take LOTS of pictures but we didn't want to disrespect their religious beliefs as to not taking pictures.  So we didn't.  The little kids were absolutely adorable.  In their little Amish dresses they looked so cute!  And they were very shy.  Sometimes they would peek out at us and duck out of sight if they saw us looking at them.  It was kind of funny.  We weren't sure why.  Some were less shy, like a tiny little Amish girl about 1-2 who found one of the "English" lady shoppers so interesting and was very animated and cute.  So funny.  Would have loved to have had a video of that.  In many cases the Amish were almost too trusting as they left the money boxes in the shop area and let you shop and requested that you leave your money or check in the box on the table and to write down what items you purchased.  Very interesting. The little boys were also cute in their straw hats and suspenders.  Other times there was a lady in the store to help and they had little accents and I asked the one younger girl a question in German but they couldn't understand me at all.  So I listened to them speak and I couldn't understand them at all either!  So their "German" was really different than any I have ever heard.  A fun experience and another fun thing to recall.