Amana Colonies offer eclectic shopping experience

By: Billie Ann Albert

Last weekend, I went to Amana Colonies with senior Mary Ingalls, her dad and his girlfriend.

It is right next to Cedar Rapids, so it was only about an hour drive there. I love to look at houses in the country, so I was pretty entertained the entire trip between that and playing with Ellie, Mary’s daughter.

We got to Cedar Rapids and spent about 15 minutes driving around, looking for E-85 gas because Mary’s dad, Scott, is very picky about what gas he uses. We finally found a gas station with the right kind of gas for him, then went to Pizza Ranch for lunch.

After we ate, we made our way to Amana Colonies and explored. We got Ellie in her stroller and headed toward the wine and cheese building. There were some cute benches outside, and we sat there while Mary fed Ellie, then we continued our journey.

We only stayed on one side of the road and did not go in many stores because they either did not seem interesting or there were stairs to the door that Mary did not want to deal with, considering the stroller and baby.

We did, however, find a cute little art store with paintings by a 12-year-old little girl. They covered the bottom floor along with pottery in one room, and more paintings and photographs covered the top floor. They were so beautiful, but I decided not to buy any.

We left the store and walked a little farther and found a jewelry store with rocks and stones lining up all the walls; they were all so beautiful. There was even a giant dinosaur bone along with dinosaur T-shirts for little kids. We finished looking at all the the stones and necklaces and decided to head out.

We did not get much farther before Ellie started to cry again, so we decided to go back to the car and change her diaper. Becca, Scott’s girlfriend, and I decided to go look at the museum where I found quite a bit of things that I liked but could only buy a couple. A lot of it was old fashioned and over-priced considering you could make a lot of the things yourself, but they were still cute.

There was not much on the first floor, so we decided to go upstairs and look. There was one room full of all things car-related. There were signs, a few old car parts and collectable toy cars along with a few other things. I found a metal sign to hang up in a garage for my dad and a little wooden painting for a friend for their lake house. The museum was very cute, and I liked it a lot, but we left after I bought my two items. Overall, it was a great trip, and I would recommend it to anyone.