2024 Michigan and Indiana
8/29/2024 to 9/7/2024
While we stayed in Elkhart Indiana, we visited Holland Michigan which was only 1.5 hours away. The main attraction that we visited was Windmill Island Gardens. Located on this island is an authentic windmill built in 1884 and named De Zwann from the country of Holland. This windmill was purchased for $2800 and is the last working windmill to leave the Netherlands in 1964. We were able to visit the 5 floors inside the windmill and walk along the outside.
Also on the grounds of the Windmill Island Gardens is an antique carousel…
…and an antique Dutch street organ. The name of this organ is “De Vier Kolommen” (meaning The Four Columns) and was a gift from the City of Amsterdam to the City of Holland in 1947.
With a canal running through the center of the gardens there is a replica of a bridge from the Netherlands that goes across the water.
During the spring, the grounds are covered with tulips. Even though we weren’t there in the spring to see the tulips, mother nature didn’t disappoint! Monarch butterflies and bees were working their magic on the other garden flowers.
Here are some additional pictures of our day at the Windmill gardens.
After having lunch in downtown Holland, we took a ride to see the Big Red Lighthouse that was built in 1870 and stands at the south side of the Holland Channel. We also took in the sights of the homes and boats along the channel.
Near Elkhart we visited the Amish bakeries (no picture but the pie and cookies were delicious), the town of Shipshewana and the barbershop!
Our next stop was Monticello, Indiana. The highlight of this stop for Jeff was the drive-in movie! He was tickled when he found out they still had a working drive-in! Another highlight of this drive-in was that they were showing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice! It was almost as good as the first one!
