Our "Runaway" Day

I didn't take pictures-- right off the bat, just sayin' I didn't get it done. Don't know why, I just didn't. Somethings I wish I would have now, but I didn't so oh well.

Andrew and I had decided to head north to Arcola yesterday. We had the top off the jeep and it was just a beautiful day for it. We made it to Arcola about 10:30 and visited the Amish Interpretive Center. It was a nice little "museum" of Amish life. We watched an 18 minute video that we both had to laugh about. It was almost like it was slanted toward "You really want to be Amish", it would talk about their lifestyle as calm, peaceful and loving; then it would make comments like "When you pass the rolling land of horses grazing and haystacks, clothes on the line and buggies, and get back to field after field of corn and beans, you will know you have reentered your hectic world" Anyway, it was interesting. We ate lunch at the Dutch Kitchen. Andrew had homemade Amish sausage and was very impressed. I had baked steak with mushrooms, it was very good as well. The apple butter was excellent.

We then made our way out to Rockome Gardens. As a kid, we would take off and go up there at least once a summer. I loved this place. It always had this calm, serene, "other worldly" feeling. I always loved walking through the well kept gardens, watching the little model railraod that was so big it was outside, going through the Amish house, seeing the horses.....all just stuff to help you slow down and settle in for some relaxation.

Well......first off, apparently the economy has hit Rockome hard. We deposited $8 a piece and went out the door. The first gardens we went to was pathetic. I don't think anyone had actually watered the flowers all summer, instead of lavish cockscomb, begonias, marigolds, and cannies, there would be a plant, tons of dry, cracked soil, then another plant, more soil, then some weeds. I was very sad but decided it must be a bad year and went on, there was this poor looking blue spruce in the middle of the garden, it was in such bad shape it reminded me of what Charlie Brown's Christmas tree would have looked like had it been allowed to grow to 15 feet.

We went to see the Amish house---Closed. The bottle houses are completely gone and when we got to the viewing area for the little model train, the weeds had grown up in the tracks so bad that you could hardly see the tracks and it was very clear the little train hadn't ran for a long time. Remember the rock shop? The only thing it is open for is to get to the hayloft and the lookout. All the rocks are gone and it is basically being used for storage.

On a "brighter" note. There was one building that seemed to be kept up very well. the ARCADE!!!! This was about the final straw for me. Video games and pool tables in the middle of Rockome Gardens. ARGH!!!

We walked on down to the end, when I was a kid, you could go to the little shops and women would be making beeswax candles and lye soap that you could buy. Now, there was sidewalk sales with most of the junk saying "made in China". The stables told where all the horses lived, but there was no sign of horses. It was time to leave. It was too depressing. We were there 20 minutes. I said I wished I had nerve enough to ask for our money back, Andrew said he did. As we walked in the door of the gift shop, I said "be nice" and he said "let's just forget asking, I'm afraid I wouldn't be nice". So we left, poorer in many ways.

We drove through the countryside, enjoying seeing the Amish houses and gardens (I at least got to see some beautiful gardens on the drive). We ended up at Tuscola, stopping and getting a coke and a tea and heading home. At least we had fun in the jeep and being together.

I always want to "fix" things when I see them going downhill. I think Arcola is a bit far away to "fix" Rockome Gardens for me. I guess it is a sign of our times. I still believe it is sad.