Mrs. Miller, Enos and a Amish Country Welcome Northeast Corner of Indiana Day 16 - Tuesday - June 18, 2002  Back   |   Next

An Ohio farmland sunrise I leave Paulding, Ohio and enter the northeastern corner of Indiana. After passing through areas (the word town, or even village, just doesn't quite feel right) Zulu, Cuba and Grabill I finally make it to a section of Indiana where I have the fastest set of wheels around. Amish buggies pass by in the opposite lane. Boys in plain white shirts and black pants with a black hat wave at me. They are towing a rowboat. Ladies peeking from inside their bonnets wave hello. Their horses pay no heed and canter on past white farmsteads, forest and farm yards. By 7 PM I am weary of the road and there is no place to camp. Amish farmers are still working the fields. By 8:49 I still have yet to find a place to camp and I am bit nervous about asking an Amish farmer permission to camp in their backyard. There is no question of continuing past sundown as there is at least another half-day's ride through Amish country, and I am almost out of water. Mrs. Jacob Miller's Farm I finally stop and park my bike in the gravel driveway of someone's house. I knock on the door and it seems nobody is home. Then a man in a pink T-shirt and blue jeans comes from out of one of the barns and asks if he could help me. Except for thick sideburns, he is clean-shaven. This, for some reason puts me at ease. I ask him for permission, and after consulting with his mother, grant it to me. His name is Danny Miller (another one!) and he is the youngest child of his mother's twelve. Mrs. Jacob Miller comes out of the house and introduces me to her neighbor, Enos Hilty. We talk about my trip and Enos invites me over for breakfast in the morning. Danny Miller tells me he once went to Washington DC for a Promise Keeper meeting. Mrs. Jacob Miller has twelve children, fifty-seven grandchildren, and eleven great grandchildren. And you would not be able to tell this for she is sprightly as any college athlete. After making me a ham sandwich dinner with strawberries and chicken soup, she takes me out on a ride in her buggy. She is test-driving her new pony to see if it's safe enough for the road, which has a lot of truck traffic. An Amish Four-Horse Garage Another buggy goes by and Mrs. Jacob Miller tells me that she is glad to see it go by because it had once been her husband's. To see it being used again brings warmth to her heart for it is now being used by their friends who use it to distribute food. While setting up the tent, her dog Ritzy gives me more attention then I've had in what seems like a long time. The small, scrappy dog licks my face as I lay on the grass writing. It sits on my journal and provokes me to laugh with his tongue slapping my face. In the twilight the farm is full of life. I can hear the wooden wheels of buggies crunch on gravel and the canter of horse hooves. I can hear the horses converse in their own language, having inter-pasture dialog of whinnies and sighs. Cows moo and birds sing while Mrs. Jacob Miller speaks with her children and neighbors in German.