Midwest Guest

Check out chocolate, bacon and other tasty treats in South Bend, Indiana

Chocolate and bacon? Together? Why not?

At least that was my thought when we recently visited the South Bend Chocolate Company Cafe in South Bend, Indiana.

I'm not a huge fan of bacon, but I couldn't resist trying a couple of pieces of chocolate-covered bacon when I saw it on the cafe's lunch menu.

"It tastes like bacon-flavored candy" the woman behind the cafe's counter enthusiastically assured me, and it turned out to be surprisingly good as I tried a bit of it on my burger and ate the rest as a side to my lunch.

Tim, who likes bacon a lot more than I do, didn't seem too sure about the combo, but he seemed to have no problem helping me eat my order of chocolate-covered bacon.

We originally discovered the South Bend confectioner in one of its franchise locations in Put-in-Bay, Ohio as I looked for a coffee shop where I could get some ice tea on a hot summer day. The Chocolate Cafe outlet had great ice tea to go, and they had a nice selection of sweet treats like a bag of "Crunch" that I bought at the same time.

Fast forward two years...I remembered that original visit to a South Bent Chocolate Company outlet and decided that it sounded like a good place to stop for lunch as we came home from central Indiana last year.

The South Bend Chocolate Cafe boasts of its status as the fastest-growing chocolate company in the nation, even as the company retains its strong roots in the South Bend community and its 10,000-square-foot flagship store and training center in the northern Indiana city's downtown.

Mark Tarner founded the company in 1991 with a desire to make largely locally sourced premium candies and other sweets and offer them at a more reasonable price.

Tarner got his start making chocolates for the University of Norte Dame in South Bend. The chocolate company's first products included university-themed chocolates with names like Domer, Rockne and Nuts for ND.

Today the company has about a dozen locations throughout Indiana, as well as a couple of locations in southwestern Michigan and a few places in Ohio that include the store we visited in Put-in-Bay.

The South Bend Chocolate Company also produces over 500 different types of items these days.

The company's chocolate factory, which employs more than 50 people and is on Sample Street in the west side of town, offers tours to chocolate-loving visitors. The 60,000-square-foot factory offers a basic 20-minute tour for free, and charges $4 for adults ($1 per child 11 and under) for the extended Inside Scoop Tour. (Sounds like a good enough excuse to schedule another visit to South Bend to me!)

We had a great lunch at the downtown store we visited. chocolate-covered bacon and all.

We ordered our burgers and went to select our beverages from a rack that included a bunch of retro drinks like Frostie, Bubble Up and Cheerwine before picking up our order and dining in the cafe.

The menu includes soups, sandwiches, hot drinks and breakfast food. The downtown location invites local musicians to entertain visitors during weekend evenings and during occasional lunch-time performances over the holidays.

The store's gift shop is also a "don't-miss".

We particularly liked the "crunches", which are caramel corn confections that include a variety of flavors and happened to be on sale the day we ate lunch there.

We took home a selection that included flavors like Sea Salt, Summer Crunch, Caramel Apple Crunch and Maple Pecan Crunch...but they're long gone now, so we need to go back soon!

Be sure to check out some of my other stories about South Bend attractions: Visiting Studebaker National Museum in South Bend, Indiana; Back to School at Indiana's University of Notre Dame; Indiana's University of Notre Dame embraces "Touchdown Jesus" and Don't Miss the Northern Indiana Center for History.

© Dominique King 2016 All Rights Reserved

Back in the Saddle: Holiday Gift Guide

Wondering what to get your favorite Motorcyclist for the holidays? Here are some suggestions!

 Clock:

Some motorcycles are equipped with an instrument cluster to rival many cars. Mine and others, however, are rather bare-bones with just a speedometer, odometer, neutral light and turn signals...and NO clock. It is really difficult, not to say dangerous, to check your watch at 70 mph. I like to keep my hands on the grips and eyes on the road.

There are lots of clocks available for bikes. Some attach to the handlebars and others like mine (above) attach with adhesive to the tank. Much better to take a quick look at the tank than try to decipher the watch on my wrist.

 Gloves:

If your fave biker rides barehanded, then it is time to get her some gloves. Motorcycle gloves will help protect her hands in a crash and help with hand fatigue and pain. With the current materials, she won't lose any of the feedback from the handlebars.

Motorcycle gloves are available in a wide range of styles for different types of riding. Prices range from a low end (and not very protective) of about $15 and can hit as high as $450. More cost, more protection but even the modest priced gloves are better than riding barehanded.

Back Protector:

Many textile and leather motorcycle jackets come with armor inserts for the shoulder, elbow and back. The standards for armor testing and certification, set in the European Community, carry a Πlabel.

If you favorite rider has a jacket, it is likely that his elbows and shoulder protectors are Πcertified, but the back pad is likely piece of closed cell foam with little protective character.

Get him a Πcertified replacement pad that will fit in the pocket on the inside back panel. The Forcefield Sport Lite back protector (above) is on my holiday list this year. The Sport Lite is available in a number of shapes and sizes to fit the pocket on many of the brands of jackets out there.

Tool Kit:

Every rider needs a compact tool kit to take along on rides. I particularly like the kits by CruzTools. They assemble a variety of kits for various bikes.

One thing to remember is that most bikes today are metric and require a metric tool kit. If she rides a BMW, there are kits specially assembled to include tools specific to BMW bikes. If the bike's a Harley, then he needs a kit with tools for English fasteners (often called an HD kit). Whatever kit the rider needs, it will definitely come in handy one day.

Fork Bag/Tool Bag

An ideal place to carry that tool kit is in a Fork Bag. Often called a tool bag, a fork bag attaches to the motorcycle's front forks. It is a convenient place to carry such things as sun glasses, iPhone charging cables, a tire pressure gauge and, yes, a tool kit. There are many different small bags that attach to the bike in various places. I chose a fork bag. Handy and fast to access, this was the first accessory that I purchased.

Battery Tender

Another indispensable accessory is a battery charger/tender. A great device to keep the motorcycle battery in peak condition at all times. I hook mine up after every ride and over the entire winter. It guarantees a start every time. It is also handy if you until run your battery is dead. It will charge a dead battery overnight.

Disc Lock

We motorcyclists fear theft even more than we fear a crash. Well maybe not quite, but close.

Most motorcycles come with a very weak fork lock that locks the handlebars in the full left position. This is very easily defeated, and then your bike is gone.

One solution to help deter theft is a disc lock that slips over the brake disc and utilizes a shaft to secure the lock to the disc. A thief cannot roll the bike away without removing the lock.

If you store your bike in a garage, the standard disc lock will probably be enough security. If you store the bike outside or off premises, then an alarmed disc lock will more likely deter theft. A quality standard disc lock will cost around $50, with an alarmed lock running from about $70 to $150. Not a bad price to safe guard that multi-thousand dollar investment.

Hearing Protection

I came of age in the late 60s and early 70s when my daily diet of music included Bob Seger, the MC5, Jimi Hendrix and other greats of Rock and Roll. I never wore ear protection while listening. Add a half career of working in loud factories, you might guess that my hearing suffered damage and I have constant ringing in my ears.

Hearing damage is time-based, cumulative and permanent. Normal conversation is 60 db, and noise as low as 85 db can cause damage.

Wind noise is also a problem. Even with a full-face helmet, wind noise levels can reach near 100 decibels. An open face helmet, half helmet or no helmet just exacerbates things.

Experts recommend that riders wear ear protection rated to cut noise by at least 30 db. The ear protection I use are E-A-Rsoft Yellow Neons Ear Plugs (above) from 3M. These plugs have a Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) of 33 db, and they are easy to use. Contrary to popular belief, you can still hear the traffic around you, sirens, and conversations without problems.

A box of 200 individually wrapped pairs (which I hang on the garage wall) runs under $16.

Click on the photos to link to the products suggested here.

© Tim Marks 2015 All rights reserved

Visiting Lehman's Hardware Store in Kidron, Ohio-High-tech marketing in a low-tech world

I've long said that visiting a local hardware store is among the best ways to find some unique souvenirs while shopping local.

 

 

Tim couldn't wait for me to start shopping here!

 

I recently found myself in Ohio's Amish Country and took the advice of online travel friends who insisted that Lehman's Hardware Store needed to be on our bucket lists and definitely found it to be a great way to find some unique items while shopping locally!

Jay Lehman originally established the hardware store in 1955, taking over a combo hardware store and gas station with the idea of catering to the area's large Amish population. The Amish in this northeast Ohio region number more than 50,000, making it the largest concentrations of Amish people in the country.

Lehman worked as the store's sole employee for a number of years, but today the store billing itself as a place to find "Simple Products for a Simpler Life", is a 35,000-square-foot super-sized store and local tourist attraction that also continues to serve the local Amish community, as well as people interested in sustainable living, urban gardening, living off-grid, missionaries and doctors working in developing countries, movie and theater set designers looking for historically accurate period pieces and those with an interest in nostalgia.

 

 

How do people find Lehman's and how do they grow their business?

Lehman, now in his 80s and still coming into the business every day to interact with customers, has never shied away from using more high-tech methods to sell the low-tech and nostalgic items that are his specialty. His son and daughter now work with him, as well as with many other employees, and embrace the new-fangled means to promote and publicize their products.

 The business boasts of shipping products to 85 different companies around the world and offering the best selection of reliable non-electrical products.

When Jay Lehman first opened the hardware store, the Amish made up about 95 percent of his customer base. These days, the Amish make up something more like 6 to 8 percent of Lehman's total sales.

 

 

More cowbells? You'll find them here!

 

The store draws about 4,000 visitors on a typical Saturday, and annually tallies about 500,000 visitors.

Sales via the store's Website and catalog account for about 60 percent of total sales with things like Y2K, 911 and the northeast blackout of 2003 brought additional customers to the store (Do any of you remember where you were during the blackout? We missed that whole episode as we'd scheduled a week-long trip near Traverse City, Michigan that started just as that infamous blackout started!).

Lehman's honors and respects past tradition and time-tested ways of doing things. They stock an amazing number of non-automated or non-electrical tools, appliances and other items. If they can't find something, they sometimes create replicas and/or create parts for them so that people can continue to use their vintage equipment for many years to come.

 

 

Lehman's also puts a special emphasis in shopping as locally as possible. Three hundred of their vendors live within 45 miles of the Kidron store, and many of them are local Amish craftspeople.

The store is also a great place to visit to learn about properly setting up and using vintage-style items like oil lamps and wood-burning stoves.

The quarter-mile-long store is actually four different pre-Civil War structures that include a hand-hewn barn, all melded together under a single roof.

 

 

There is also a smaller, more traditional hardware store at nearby New Hope that appeals more to the traditional Lehman's Amish shopper.

We easily spent a couple of hours in the Kidron store, finding all sorts of things we needed like a cast-iron spoon rest for our stove, a puzzle that pictured a bunch of vintage character lunch boxes, an Ohio Gazetteer and a number of vintage-style and hand-crafted soda pops.

We saved shopping at The Soda Pop Shop for last. The section, stationed by the store's entrance, has over 70 varieties of root beer (and we all know how much Tim loves his root beer) as part of a collection of 300+ pops.

Moxie, Frostie, Mighty Mouse or Birch Beer anyone?

 

 

Connect with Lehman's on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and their blog, Countrylife.Lehmans.com

 

 

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

More CJ Affiliate news

As promised, we're back this week to spotlight a few more of our ad affiliate partners that specifically feature Midwest companies and products.

Carhartt-Founded in 1889 in Detroit to make rugged work clothing for railroad workers, the company continues to supply hard working clothing for the rail workers, construction workers, ranchers, farmers, rodeo riders and others who require durable work wear. Better yet, the company expanded into women's and children's wear, flame-resistant wear, hunting clothing and more over the years.

Earlier this year, Carhartt opened a flagship store in Detroit on Cass Avenue near midtown and Wayne State University, and I was thrilled when they agreed to accept Midwest Guest as an ad affiliate.

Wisconsin Made-Love Wisconsin food like bratwurst and sausage or cheese curds? Check out this site for all foodie things Wisconsin, as well for the work of Wisconsin artisans and books or records from Wisconsin artists.

Run Green-Check out this family-owned John Deere Dealer in Western Michigan for anything and everything John Deere, from clothing, to parts for your John Deere equipment to clothing and cool John Deere toys.

The toys especially look like a lot of fun to me...and range from ride-on toys for infants and toddlers to detailed collectible scale models of trucks and farm equipment for adult fans. So if you little boy...or little girl...loves big trucks and farm equipment, you need to check this site out.

Chicago Steak Company-The Windy City is well-known as a purveyor of quality beef and other premium meats. The Chicago Steak Company especially prides itself on providing the highest grades of beef to their customers and providing customers with the means to become true grill masters.

Let Chicago Steak Company help you choose the perfect corporate gift or something like surf and turf duos for a truly special dinner.

We earn a small commission if you purchase something from our advertising partners through a link on our site. The money we earn this helps defray our expenses and helps us to keep traveling throughout the Midwest.

Thanks so much for supporting Midwest Guest by considering doing some of your holiday shopping here!

Revisiting Holmes County and Ohio's Amish Country

We recently revisited the Inn at Honey Run in Ohio's Amish Country and found our getaway at the inn every bit as lovely and as relaxing as I remember it being during our last visit five years ago.

The biggest things you'll need to take on this trip are hearty appetites and a cooler to take some of the goodies you find home with you.

We loved relaxing at the inn and exploring the small towns populating the area like Millersburg, Charm, Trail and Berlin, and as big cheese lovers, we especially enjoyed visiting the local cheese factories and markets to sample and stock up on some of our favorites like Amish Butter Cheese and Trail Bologna.

I scored a "once in a blue moon" discount deal by following the inn's email newsletter, jumping on the opportunity to book a short fall getaway earlier this summer on the occasion of July's "blue moon".

We'd hoped to book closer to the height of fall color season, but as our early November weekend at the inn arrived, we had perfect temperatures that hit the low 70s during the day and mostly stayed above 50 each evening. That weather made it perfect for hiking some of the inn's short trails, having a glass of wine on the outdoor deck at the inn's main lodge and exploring the area. The trees still had a bit of color, and it was pleasant enough to enjoy sitting out on our outdoor patio in the inn's Honeycombs unit, a unique building set into the earth overlooking the inn's meadow and farmland.

We found birds particularly plentiful when we last visited the inn during the spring, but we found plenty of birds to watch here in early November, including a large cardinal that seemed particularly fond of the bird feeder right by our patio and a beautiful woodpecker which we enjoyed watching as he perched on a tree by the plate glass windows in the Tarragon dining room during breakfast one day..

We remembered the food as being excellent at the inn when we last visited, but we were especially excited to try Tarragon this year as a new chef and menu came to the Inn at Honey Run just after our last visit. The meals were elegant, if a little on the pricey side, and the service was particularly attentive and friendly.

Another change since we last visited was the fact that the inn extended Wi-Fi access (previously only available in the main lodge) to rooms in the Honeycombs building.

Among the things that remained unchanged was the beautiful view of the stars that we enjoyed while sitting on our patio and hearing the occasional "baaa" from the inn's barn sheep or "clip-clop" of horses drawing Amish buggies along the road near the inn.

It's worth noting that drivers should exercise caution while driving along the hilly and curvy roads in Amish Country and keep especially alert to spot slow moving buggies along the highway. Check our story Driving in Amish Country to read about our encounter with one driver's impatience and a tragedy averted by one young woman's excellent horsemanship.

Amish Country is a foodie paradise, especially for cheese lovers, and we enjoyed revisiting the cheese stores and factories at Guggisberg and Heini's Cheese Chalet where you can sample favorites like Ohio-made Amish butter cheese or Swiss cheese. We also liked Troyer's Market, where we parked beside the Amish buggies in the parking lot on a shopping trip for bulk foods and the company's famed trail bologna, plus I stopped at Swissters in Sugarcreek (formerly Heini's Gourmet Market) where I could pick up a couple of bottles of my favorite Ohio Riesling to take home.

A day of shopping for cheese, bologna and wine left us hungry for some authentic Amish dinner fare. Checking in with Yelp on my cell phone app (which is usually pretty good about helping us find great local grub) led us to Mrs. Yoder's Kitchen. Yelpers raved about the broasted chicken at this restaurant, and we both had to agree with that assessment.

We opted for the chicken dinner with the classic Amish noodles and a trip to the salad bar. We both like broasted chicken and found Mrs. Yoder's version to be particularly tasty, meaty and juicy.   

The restaurant, owned by Gloria Yoder, who started the restaurant about 15 years ago, is a favorite stop for locals and tourists alike.

Click on Visit the Inn at Honey Run in Ohio's Amish County and Amish Cheese and more in Holmes County, Ohio for more about our previous visit to Holmes County.

Want to learn more about the Amish and Mennonite communities in Ohio? Check out Our People: The Amish and Mennonites of Ohio by Levi Miller, Plain Secrets: An Outsider among the Amish by Joe Mackall and Holmespun: An Intimate Portrait of an Amish and Mennonite Community by Laura Hurwitz.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Midwest Guest partners with select companies through affiliate ad network

Midwest Guest partners with select companies through the CJ  Affiliate Ad Network

Much as we enjoy creating the content for Midwest Guest, it takes a fair amount of effort and resources to support the blog throughout the year. Cameras, computers, server space, photo storage space, a SmugMug gallery and more are all necessary tools of the trade, which we help pay for through ad income or fees earned from our freelance writing or photography gigs.

We're excited to announce a new partnership with Midwest Guest and a select group of ad affiliates working though the CJ (formerly Commission Junction) Affiliate Network that allowed us to hand-pick advertisers that we love and use ourselves, and that fit into the mission of Midwest Guest to share stories about the types of travel we love or have a strong tie to Midwestern companies and products.

We'll receive a small commission for purchases readers make by linking to our affiliate advertisers from here that will help offset our expenses, and it's our hope that you'll find some great Midwest products and advertisers that you'll love dealing with as much as we do.

Let us briefly introduce a few of the companies we're partnering with through CJ Affiliate and tell you how we decided to partner with them:

 

 

 

 

Life is Good-I've long loved Life is Good and their casual T-shirts, hats, socks and other items featuring their cute graphics. Their hockey- and motorcycle-themed shirts and hats are particular favorites with us, and my most recent purchase from them came after Tim asked for a Life is Good motorcycle hat after seeing one on someone else around town.

 

Revzilla-This is a particular favorite with Tim. He purchased a lot of accessories for his motorcycle after his return to motorcycling after a 40-year absence from it. You'll find some reviews at Midwest Guest about gear he's purchased and enjoyed through Revzilla. Particularly impressive to me? Tim tells me fellow bike riders say Revzilla is particularly attentive to the needs of female motorcyclists seeking gear that fits correctly. I also had a good experience ordering gifts from the company for Tim and appreciated that fact that they allowed me to assign a discount coupon I earned with my purchase to Tim for his own use.

 

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BedandBreakfast.com-Why not give the gift of travel? We are big fans of staying in Bed and breakfast inns, and this site is a great way to find unique B&Bs from around the country, and around the world, so you can plot your own adventure or give a loved one their own gift  certificate towards their own unique stay.

 

 

 

 

Meredith Publications-One of my favorite publications when it comes to travel is Meredith's Midwest Living magazine. Plans for many of our trips started to take shape as I read about some great Midwest destinations in the pages of Midwest Living magazines or books.

 

 

Speaking of books, we also continue to have an affiliate relationship with Amazon, which we often use to help folks find books from some of our favorite Midwestern authors like Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli (a northern Michigan author releasing a new book from her Nut House Mystery series this month and a book from her new Little Library Mystery series next summer), Mardi Link (another Michigan author who primarily writes true-crime and other non-fiction books based in Michigan) and Deanna Adams (Cleveland-area author of Rock 'n' Roll and the Cleveland Connection and several other fiction and non-fiction books). Enter through our Amazon affiliate link and search box on our front page to access these books as well as well as a world of other books, music-related or household and hobby-related products.

Coming up later this month, we'll introduce a few more of our affiliate partners that specifically feature Midwest companies and products.

Meanwhile, thanks so much for supporting Midwest Guest by considering doing some of your holiday shopping here!

©Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Back in the Saddle: Review of the Saddlemen Tunnel/Tail Bag

Looking for some luggage to use with your motorcycle? I found the Saddlemen Tunnel/Tail Bag to be an excellent choice.

 

 

I looked at saddlebags but, the Suzuki OEM bags were not available, and the other bag choices for m y Suzuki "Thumper" style bike were too large and required me to relocate the turn signals, which I did not want to do.

The Saddlemen Tunnel/Tail bag is perfect for trips to the library, the office, school and other errands around town. The bag is made of 1200 denier nylon, and the stitching and build quality is excellent. The bag hugs the pillion (passenger seat), so riding with a passenger is not possible.

 

 

The bag is extremely easy to install. The Velcro® pad attaches to the pillion by straps that slip beneath the seat and utilize double d-rings to snug the pad to the seat. The bag has Velcro® on its underside mating to the pad. Secure the bag with three straps, two in the front and one in the rear that slip into the buckles that snap closed for a solid anchor.

The Tunnel Bag comes in two sizes: "Standard" for pillions up to nine inches wide and "Wide" for pillions up to 12 inches wide.

How much will the bag carry?

It will easily fit a 15" laptop or a full-sized iPad®, a small lunch bag, a disc-lock, school books and many of your everyday needs. For around town, the bag is perfect, but what about on the road?

I decided to see if it might hold enough for a short road trip. I was able to get the following items into it:

• 3 T-shirts
• 1 pair of jeans
• 3 pair of underwear
• 3 pair of socks
• iPad®
• Toothbrush, razor, etc.
• Disc-lock
• Tool kit

 

 

I could have squeezed in at least two more T-shirts, more underwear and socks in to, so packing for a long weekend is possible. The bag has multiple d-rings, so I cold bungee and additional small pack to the top of the bag.

 

 

The bag is easy to deal with when you get to your destination. Disconnect the three attachment straps, pull the bag off of the Velcro®, grab it by its handle and carry it into the office or hotel. It takes about a minute to mount and less than ten seconds to remove.

 

 

This bag is well-built, easy to install and the style complements my bike. Saddleman makes and sells a variety of motorcycle luggage, accessories and its specialty motorcycle seats.

If you are looking for a small bag to pack for a weekend trip or commuting in town, the Saddlemen Tunnel/Tail Bag is a great choice!

I also suggest Revzilla as a great place to find this bag or other motorcycle gear. I've had good luck purchasing from Revzilla and find their service to be prompt and efficient.

Want some fun motorcycle themed wear? Check out the Life is Good catalog for some fun things to wear to show your love for the sport like this cap Dominique bought for me recently!

Lifeisgood Ride On Motorcycle Chill Cap

 

© Tim Marks/Midwest Guest 2015 All rights reserved

Back in the Saddle: Taming the Wind

With 200 miles on my bike, riding back from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Returning Rider Course a headwind picked up. That wind beat the daylights out of me for about ten miles. I knew then that I needed some kind of wind protection.

I looked around on the web for windshields for my Boulevard S40. Everything I came across was above $250 and I wasn't willing to spend that much for something that might or might not work. I did a quick check of Amazon and found Slipstreamer. It appeared that the Slipstreamer “Spitfire S-06C” might just work. The price was right so I went to the Slipstreamer web site to check it out.

It turns out that the Spitfire was just what the doctor ordered. Under $100, good reviews and an easy install.

The Spitfire is fifteen inches from the headlight opening to the top of the shield. Mine is set about three inches above the headlight and comes to about my nose level. The Spitfire was a breeze to install. It took about forty minutes including quick rides to get the positioning just right.

The Spitfire installs via two adjustable bars that attach to clamps on the bike's handlebars. At first glance it appears flimsy but in practice I have no problems at up to 65 mph (I haven't ridden any faster but I doubt that it would make a difference).

To install the Spitfire attach the bars to the windscreen using the included nuts. Then you install the clamps to the handlebars; these install in different configurations so you may have to do some trial and error here.

After installing the windscreen get on and go for a short ride to test the angle and height. Make adjustments and repeat. Once you have it right, re-tighten all the screws and bolts and take a longer ride. If everything is fine remove each fastener one at a time and put some “Medium Strength (Blue) Loctite” and re-install. Now there is no danger of the windshield coming loose while riding.

The Spitfire works great; it deflects the air and wind off of my chest and over my head. It greatly diminishes wind noise and if for some reason I want to ride without the screen it is easy to remove. The shield is made of optically clear acrylic and should stand up to normal motorcycle use. Slipstreamer makes a variety of screens for almost any motorcycle you can think of. They include all needed hardware and are available in either chrome or black finish. The screens are available in either clear or a light smoke tint.

Slipstreamer publishes an Application Chart. The chart lists the windshields and what bikes they are compatible with. They also offer their full line catalog for download.

©Tim Marks 2015 All rights reserved

Midwest Market Basket: Crystal Lake Alpaca Boutique

Farmers markets, grocery stores, hardware stores, indie book stores and other local spots are among our favorite places to go souvenir shopping when we're on the road in the Midwest.

Here's another Midwest Market Basket feature about some of our favorite Midwest products, shopping discoveries and where to find them.

I would imagine that a veterinarian in Northern Michigan would see a lot of common household pets and common farm animals, but David Nelson's animal patients at Platte Lake Veterinary Clinic also include a good number of alpacas.

That's because David and Chris Nelson also own a thriving alpaca farm!

David opened his vet clinic in 1991 in Honor, Michigan. David and his wife, Chris Nelson, love animals. The couple raised a number of animals on their farm in nearby Benzonia over the past two-dozen years, but things changed when they visited the farm of one of David's clients who had a few alpacas.

The couple fell in love with the alpacas, purchasing a few of the animals to raise them more than a dozen years ago.

The farm sits across the road from Gwen Frostic Prints, a favorite stop for me when we visit the area. I've visited Gwen's for many years, and I'd idly wondered about the alpacas I'd noticed at the farm across the road, but I never visited the farm until I noticed that a new store selling alpaca fiber, clothing and other alpaca-fiber items opened at the farm a few years ago.

The 145-acre farm is on River Road between Benzonia and Frankfort, near Lake Michigan and offering nice views of Crystal Lake.

The boutique took shape in 2012 when friends and family helped the Nelsons build the boutique by redoing an old red barn on the farm properly and using wood harvested on the property to create shelving and rustic Northwoods-style decor and display space inside of the building.

We visited the boutique on a crisp autumn day last year to check out the sweaters, toys, mittens, scarves, socks and other alpaca products.

The store sells yarn and fiber harvested from the farm's alpacas.

The typical yield from a single sheared alpaca is about 5 to 10 pounds of fiber, which might be enough to create a half dozen sweaters.

The farm's alpaca herd isn't large enough to support large-scale production, and since most alpacas (like nearly 99 percent of the animals) live in South American, Chris Nelson supplements the boutique's yarn and fiber with goods mostly purchased from Fair Trade sources in Peru, Chile or Bolivia.    

People love alpaca fleece because it is warmer than wool, doesn't itch like wool and, because alpaca fibers do not contain lanolin, alpaca fleece doesn't cause allergic reactions like wool can.

The alpaca fibers have hollow pockets of air inside of them, making them lightweight while still allowing them to breathe and provide warmth. Garments made with alpaca fibers also rarely need washing because the air circulating through the fibers essentially make it so the garments clean themselves. Alpaca fleece is also extremely durable, fire retardant and water repellant.

I was sold, and ended up purchasing a pair of mittens!  Good thing that I did because they kept my hands extraordinarily warm and dry when I wore them during a snowy winter week when we visited the area last winter.

Money made at the boutique helps the Nelsons buy feed for the farm's alpaca herd and make repairs at the farm.

The farm sells and breeds alpacas, and there are about 45 alpacas living at the farm this year.

Alpacas weigh about 150 pounds and have a average lifespan of 20 years. Llamas, which some folks may confuse with alpacas, are heavier (weighing closer to 400 pounds), have courser fleece than the alpacas and are more commonly known as pack animals that sometimes will spit at those who displease them.

White is the most common color of the soft alpaca fleece. There are 22 colors in all that also include brown, fawn, rose-grey, red, apricot and the rarer black or grey.

The alpacas draw a lot of interest from visitors around Michigan and neighboring states or from places Germany, Japan and Thailand. It's not unusual to see 200 visitors at the farm in the course of a single summer day, including a day last year when 700 folks arrived to check it all out!

The Nelsons like to give their alpacas some privacy by not allowing visitors to troop through the barns or pasture, but they welcome visitors to sit on a bench near the boutique and relax while watching the alpacas at the farm across the parking lot.

The boutique opens for summer and fall hours, six days a week, from sometime in May until mid-October. The boutique opens Wednesday through Saturday during November and December. Check the Web site for the exact schedule or to find out how you can shop for alpaca wear online!

Alpaca ornament for my Christmas tree!

You can also connect with Crystal Lake Alpaca Boutique on Facebook, Twitter, Instgram or Pinterest.

Check out Gwen Frostic Prints reopens for retail business in its long-time northern Michigan home for more information about the alpaca farm's popular neighbor across the road, and check out the Frostic Web site to learn about continuing efforts to save that business' unique building.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Banned and Challenged Books-Midwest edition

Banned book Week (September 27 - October 3) will soon be upon us, and it's interesting to see what books draw challenges, or outright bans, with some of them drawing fire year after year.

 

 

I remember my junior high school social studies teacher wanting our class to read "Manchild in the Promised Land" by Claude Brown. The autobiographical novel told the story of Brown's childhood growing up in a Harlem tenement during the 1940s and 1950s as the son of former sharecroppers who migrated from the South.

Some parents, concerned that the book was a bit more mature than our seventh grade minds could handle, complained to the local school board. The school board had misgivings about the assignment and reached a compromise that said the teacher could not require the class to read the book and that students wishing to read the book needed a signed permission slip from their parents in order to do so.

My mom, not a fan of censorship and knowing her child quite well, said she'd sign the permission slip as she figured I'd find a way to read the book anyway if she didn't.

That is my only recollection of attempted censorship of my reading, but a check of the American Library Association's web site finds plenty of instances of challenges and bans throughout the years, with many of them revolving around books meant for children and young adult readers.

When I noticed the multiple challenges the books of Toni Morrison faced throughout the years, I began to wonder how many other authors born in the heartland, or authors somehow connected to the Midwest, faced such challenges.

Here is a list of Midwest authors that wrote books, some of them considered real classics that faced challenges or bans from library patrons or school districts over the years:

Toni Morrison-born Chloe Ardella Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Morrison's books often appear on listings of challenged books, including seeing her book, The Bluest Eye, appearing on the ALA's  list of top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014.

 

 

Brian Vaughan-born July 17, 1976 in Cleveland, Ohio also appeared on the ALA's list of top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014 for "Saga", a comic book series deemed as, among other things, "anti-family".

 

 

Ernest Hemmingway-born July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois and spent many summers in Petoskey in northern Michigan. Books like Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls appear on the ALA's list of challenged classics.

 

 

Gary Paulsen-born May 17, 1939 in Minneapolis, Minnesota best known for writing coming-of-age stories set in the wilderness and partly based on traumatic incidents in his own life. His name appears on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged books for 2000-2009.

 

 

John Michael Green-born August 24, 1977 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Known as a novelist and video blogger who produces online educational videos. He is the author of about a half-dozen novels, and his first novel, Looking for Alaska, appeared on the ALA's 2013 list of Top Ten Banned/Challenged books.

 

Mark Twain-born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Best known for books like Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn more than 100 years ago, but the book still regularly appears on listings of Top Ten  Banned/Challenged books into the 21st century.

 

 

Kate Chopin-born Katherine O'Flaherty on February 8, 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri. Chopin moved to Louisiana after her marriage at age 20. She set many of her stories and books in that state, but moved back to St. Louis after her husband's death. Her mother died shortly afterwards, and a physician friend suggested that writing might be a means of healing for her. Chopin's second novel drew heavy criticism because of its early feminist themes, and it appears on the ALA's list of classic books most banned and challenged.   

 

 

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor-born on January 4, 1933 in Anderson, Indiana. Her series of Young Adult fictional books about "Alice", a motherless child making her way through life, became one of the most frequently challenged and banned books in libraries.

 

 

R.L. Stine-born Robert Lawrence Stine on October 8, 1943 in Columbus, Ohio. Readers may best know the prolific writer in horror fiction and children's literature for his Goosebumps series for kids. Stine appears multiple times on lists of banned/challenged books, including on the ALA's list of Top 100 Banned/Challenged books: 2000-2009.

 

 

Theodore Dreiser-born August 27, 1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Journalist and novelist best known for Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, this Pulitzer Prize nominee in Literature appears on the ALA's list of banned classics.

 

Ray Bradbury-born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. This noted science fiction writer authored the book Fahrenheit 451 in the 1950s, which tells about a future in American where books are outlawed, banned and burned--a book which became the subject of multiple challenges and is listed on the ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009.

 

 

Dav Pilkey-born David Murray Pilkey, Jr. on March 4, 1966 in Cleveland Ohio. The annual Thanksgiving Day parade in Detroit isn't over until the large Captain Underpants balloon flies onto the scene, so I think it's appropriate enough to end this list by spotlighting the author/illustrator of the popular kids' series. The frequent challenges only seem to spur the popularity of the series while would-be censors question Pilkey's work because of perceived potty humor and the thought that the books encourage children to question authority. (I'll bet that the questioners are probably the same sorts of people responsible for the complaints that fueled the fast-growing popularity of the musical group Barenaked Ladies during the 1990s!)

 

 

So there you have it...read a challenged book, support a Midwest writer or just check out a great way to enjoy a few fall afternoons!

(Note: Indie bookstores aren't so easy to find any more, but we do like to go the Schuler Books--where I got the button pictured at the top of this article--when we head out to Grand Rapids or East Lansing, Michigan)

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved