Amish Cheese Factory at Rockome Gardens, Arcola Illinois

アーコラ郊外のロコーム庭園内のアーミッシュのチーズ工房を訪ねる

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After eating lunch, we headed to the Rockome Gardens. This used to be a good tourist spot in Arcola, where the Raggedy Ann and Andy Museum was located. Then, the ownership was transfered to another person and it was under renovation when we visited. (It is reopened now with some interesting facilities.) Still, a cheese factory kept open. So we decided to visit the factory because this is an Amish owned business. We drove on a country road, the both sides of which were vast corn fields. And we saw Amish farms with white houses, white barns, and white silos spotted all around. About 20 minute drive took us to the Rockome Garden.

This is the entrance to the Rockome Gardens. Just into the entrance, we found a parking lot for the cheese factory.

This is a front window of the factory. It was kept clean even outside.

A pumpkin decoration by the front door. It was mid October, and we saw a lot of halloween decorations all over the places we visited. But it's cute anyway, isn't it?

When we entered the factory, this shelf first came to our eyes. These are candies with many flavors: banana, blueberry, strawberry, cinnamon, watermelon, and a few more. One bag cost just two to three dollars.

You can get candies for weight. You put as many candies as you like on the scale to find weight, and bring them to the pay counter.

The bags on the left are yogurt coated pretzels and those on the right are yogurt coated raisins. Again, one bag cost only about $2.50!!

These are thin sliced almonds. The price was about the same: $2.5 for one bag.

These are maple nuts goodies. The price was $3.50 through $4.00.

These are mustard with different flavors. I saw honey mustard, roasted garlic mustard, horseradish mustard, habanero mustard, and jalapeno mustard. I bought one bottle of honey mustard for my own souvenir.

Edna Lucille handmade soaps. Very smooth and good for your skin. This was a little bit expensive; $3.49. I bought one cake with lilac flavor.

Have you ever heard of sugar scrub? This is a skin care item for women and is actually made of sugar! How do we use it? Pinch some scrub and put it on the palm of your one hand. Then add little water to it with the other hand and then rub both hands together gently. Samples are placed on the table so you can try it on the spot.

After visiting the Amish cheese factory, we went back to the town of Arcola, and checked in Comfort Inn Arcola. Our original plan was to have dinner at Dutch Kitchen, but some of my students had stomachache probably because of too much size of American food to them. Still, I was hungry so I went to a Subway just next to our hotel and took out a half size sandwich. To my surprise, I found an Amish father and his son ordering sandwiches. I knew Arcola really is a good community where both "English" and Amish people live side by side in a very peaceful relationship.