Today it's time to get up early! At 6:00 am, we fight our way out of the beds, get together and sit at 7:00 am at the terrace restaurant where we eat delicious croissants and omelets for breakfast. Then we go back to the hotel room to get the suitcases and check out. Unfortunately, we arrive too early at the car rental, because our car is not yet ready for pickup. So we pass an hour sitting on a bench and watch the passing yachts.
Back at the rental agency we get an unkempt, old, red car. In our booked car class currently supposedly nothing else is available. We immediately plan a trip to the nearest airport to book a car there. No sooner said than thought after a quick trip to the supermarket, we stock up on drinks. We drive just a few miles to the nearest car rental branch at the airport.
Here we get a brand new car model with the very best equipment, and this time in innocent white. The salesman introduced us the car, in the size of a cruise liner, as pretty baby but giant baby would be more appropriate. Something smaller than this battleship is supposedly not available at the moment. Even me, who is crazy about big SUVs, looks a bit unsure as we get into the car.
We leave the state of Illinois and reach Elkhart County in the north of Indiana. Here we make a detour to the Amish Acres and drive through Shipshewana. As the time slowly announces the hunger, we get to a food house where we can eat a delicious Amish home-style food in buffet form.
In the evening we reach the state of Ohio, and finally around 23:00 o'clock finally our hotel for this night in Toledo, where we fall into bed exhausted.
Day 2 in Ohio
At 8:00 clock the sun is already out of the feathers! Since breakfast is being served at the hotel today, we stay in bed until the hotel staff bring the breakfast. Then it is packed together, checked out and we drive to the next gas station so that pretty baby as we now call our battleship can also be fed.
After a short stopover at a supermarket, where we go on a shopping spree, we drive to Berlin a cute place, which is entirely in Amish Country. We get completely out of our mind when we see the town sign because we thinks we are already on our way home.
Here we stroll a little through the town and through the numerous shops in which the self-made products of the Amish are offered. I am especially interested in the home-made ice cream. Of course I encourage myself to take a courageous decision and defeat any caloric fears.
When we want to get back into our car in the parking lot, we are actually asked by a lady, if we would rent our car. She drives only a normal SUV and needed for the planned furniture purchase but rather a truck that is our giant baby. Luckily I do not cheat on fright on ice cream!
By car, we drive through Amish Country, where we play paparazzi and try to get as many Amish as possible in front of the lens. These industrious people are more concerned with their daily work in the houses and are not too keen on involuntary photo shoots. A few snapshots succeed us anyway.
In Kidron we stop and look at Amish household items and machines. Later on the freeways towards Cleveland, we find ourselves in an extreme downpour that turns the road into a river and overwhelms the windshield wipers. So we're happy when we reach our hotel.
Every guest gets a warm cookie as a welcome present when checking in! This nice idea can also be taken up by other hotels, we think! I am convinced after a bite of the delicious nougat. Although it is not yet 18:00 clock, the city that looks like extinct. Also, the shopping mall are actually only open until 17:00 every day.
Unfortunately, we cannot solve the puzzle of how such a thing is possible in a city with almost half a million inhabitants. Since it is still dark and cloudy, the whole thing seems a bit surreal and we are on the look out for wobbly zombies for safety's sake. Fortunately, at least a cafe was open.
When we got a cafe discovering what has actually opened, and in which even living, breathing people are staying, we no longer need to think about what is on the menu. Today we happily exterminate our beloved burritos.
