An Amish carriage meanders down a rural road. Photograph © Will Van Overbeek

Found in America
By Elizabeth Berg

On a warm September morning, I sat in the kitchen of the Chicago condo I share with my partner, Bill, and looked carefully at a map of the eastern United States. I was going to drive back to my house in Boston, alone, and I wanted to make sure I had memorized what I needed to know before I hit the freeway. It seemed pretty clear: Drive up Washington Boulevard, turn right, get in the left hand lane for 290, then follow the signs for Indiana.

Soon I passed steel mills, and the billboard proclaiming, "Gary Works," and then headed for U.S. Route 20. I was going to Amish country, specifically to Middlebury, Indiana, to buy a quilt. And I wanted to take the back roads, which I haven't seen in years, because I was looking for something. The absence of McDonald's, you might say. The presence of individuality. Of personality. Proof that not all of America has become amalgamated into a characterless landscape.

As soon as I got onto Route 20, I saw a difference. Rather than the interstates' endless asphalt and rest stops that are distressingly identical to each other, the back roads show you where and how our species lives. There are farms in the middle of protective stands of trees, silos reaching for the sky, barns faded to the soft red of tomato soup. There are small towns where old people sit on porches in rockers, kids in striped T-shirts tear around street corners on bikes, and young mothers proudly push babies in strollers. There are white churches, redbrick elementary schools, stores with family names only known locally, and movie theaters featuring that rarest of things: a single offering.

Mile by mile, you become intimately aware of the lay of the land: You take in acres of cornfields, man-made canyons created by roads blasted through mountains, fenced pastures of cows standing in tight groups like gossips. You feel the land, too—your stomach rises up and down pleasantly as you roller-coast the long, steep hills outside the towns.

It is balm for the soul, I tell you. I turned off the CD player, because what I saw was so interesting I couldn't focus on the music. And it was good music, too: Lucinda Williams. Tori Amos. Even Wolfgang Amadeus could not hold a candle to the ever changing panorama outside my windshield.

In Middlebury, I paused for lunch at Das Dutchman Essenhaus, an Amish restaurant next to an inn and village shops. I had a hot turkey sandwich (with real mashed potatoes) served by a teenage Amish girl who seemed to take pleasure—and pride—in her work.

After lunch, I went in search of a quilt. I found several in one shop, but they were not quite what I wanted. In the bakery, where I bought a gigantic loaf of apple cinnamon bread, I asked the cashier if she knew of any place where I might find quilts for sale.

"I'll bet if you just go on into Shipshewana, you'll find something," she said. I looked on my map. No Shipshewana.

"Where is it?" I asked, and just as she was drawing me a map on a napkin, an older Amish woman came behind the counter to deliver some muffins. The cashier grabbed her, saying, "You'll know. Where would be a good place for this woman to buy quilts?"

The older woman, the top of her simple blue dress held closed by a shiny straight pin, her fingers stained red by raspberries, looked me over in a friendly way. Then she leaned closer and, one eyebrow raised, asked, "Well, what exactly are you looking for?" There was an air of secrecy about it.

I said, "Just something more...I mean, the ones here are pretty, but they're not...."

"Okay," she said. "I know what you want. I know a woman who makes beautiful quilts, and if she doesn't have what you're looking for right there, she'll make it for you." Then, looking around, lowering her voice, she said, "They'll be cheaper, too."

I got pretty excited. "Where is she?" I asked, and the old woman rattled off a set of complicated directions involving a lot of county roads and vague landmarks. I wrote down as much as I could, then asked, "Does she have a phone?"

The old woman laughed merrily. "Oh, no!" she said. And then she laughed again. It was a pretty dumb question.

I decided to simply drive into Shipshewana, to see what I might find. Just off the main road a sign read: HANDMADE QUILTS.

Pulling into the driveway of the farm I was greeted by a fluffy white dog that tried to look fierce, but failed. He gave a reasonable growl, but his tail wagged wildly. I petted him, then went to the barn sporting an OPEN sign. Inside, I found a bearded man wearing suspenders and dressed in simple Amish clothing. He was refinishing furniture.

"Oh. Well, I guess this is not the quilt store," I said.

"In the house," he answered. "Just knock."

The young woman who answered the door ushered me into a large, sunny room containing what must have been a hundred quilts. She patiently showed them to me, one by one. I found at least seven I wanted to buy, but settled on one with a black background with a complicated pattern done in jewel tones and quilting so fine it took my breath away.

I packed the quilt carefully into the backseat of my car, thinking that when I got tired later, I'd take a nap under it. Then I drove east along Route 20, passing horse and buggies, and a hardware store where one buggy was parked amid a sea of automobiles. The horse appeared entirely unfazed, standing patiently, flicking his tail against the flies.

I returned to Interstate 90, and, just as the sun was setting, came into Cleveland. The road had me do a kind of do-si-do with the city: First I got a view of the skyline, tall buildings rising up against deep pink clouds and a lavender sky. Then I circled around to a view of Jacobs Field, that great ballpark, where the lights were already turned on. Finally, I came onto a stretch of road with a grand view of Lake Erie. I felt happy, and acutely aware of the difference between flying and driving. When you're sitting in a stuffy plane, you feel locked in a closet, suspended from the life going on below you. When you drive, you have the experience of really being where you are. Nothing virtual about this reality.

On my second day I drove along Route 5, which follows closely along Lake Erie, and which, mile after mile, is absolutely gorgeous. Even a fruit stand I stopped at overwhelmed me with its earthy grandeur: dark purple Concord grapes set out in brown baskets, blushing peaches crowding each other on wooden tables, green apples in bushel baskets, all smelling of fall.

I drove through the morning, before taking a break at a boat-launch site where I brought out a piece of my cinnamon bread to feed a lone seagull I saw. But within seconds, there was a good 20, squawking loudly, hanging suspended in the air like live mobiles.

I took several photographs that failed miserably at capturing the beauty of my time at the edge of that vast body of water. You had to be there, as they say. You had to smell the air so clean it seemed bleached, feel the perfect warmth of the day against your bare arms, hear the raucous cries of those greedy, greedy birds, see the sun sparkle in the glassy curls of the waves. You had to stand still with your eyes closed, and feel with your feet on the face of the Earth.

Driving, I saw ice-cream stands and hamburger joints, canoes floating down rivers, tiny airports advertising plane rides. I saw rest stops where bikers and retirees shared picnic tables. I saw sullen teenagers slumped down in front seats, cruising small towns that they couldn't wait to leave. I saw small U-Hauls and huge moving vans, and guessed at their destinations.

I nodded at truck drivers I passed, feeling as though I knew a little of what they knew about the pull of the road. I drove past a fine-looking old drive-in movie theater and my corny old heart rejoiced, seeing that they still existed. (My black cat-eye glasses hanging from the rearview mirror surfaced; my lips bruised from kissing; the commingled scents of Canoe and Intimate, the whispered complaints of denied desires—Ahhhhh!) Radio stations faded in, faded out. Birds flew in formation high above me, making their own journeys.

When you drive so many miles, you get in a lot of good thinking time. I experienced the rich kind of mentation that occurs only when you reach a near meditative state of relaxation. I felt as though my life spread out on either side of me, airing itself out so that it could come back into me, refreshed.

When I saw the red sun hanging low in the sky, I knew I had to get back on the interstate and make better time. I gulped more coffee, got more gas, turned the radio up loud. And the next time I got out of the car, I was home in Boston.

"How was your trip?" my daughters asked.

"I got a quilt," I said, as though it was an answer.

Here's the real answer:

It can be incredibly time-consuming and uncomfortable to drive long distance. But it's worth it, for the way your imagination gets off the leash. You drive past a house in a small town and you wonder: Who lives there? What do they do for a living? Who's in their family and what do they call their dog? You see a stranger walking down a random sidewalk and you wonder what he dreams at night. You drive past a farmhouse and think, What is it like to eat breakfast in that kitchen? To walk in those fields? To fall asleep in that bedroom so close to that maple?

In the beginning, we humans did not settle away from each other. We did not keep to ourselves or to lonely, outer borders. We were curious, drawn to one another, comforted by our similarities and inspired by our differences.

We are still that way, I think. This trip showed me that. It also showed me that the America I remembered still exists. I drove for more than a thousand miles in a car smelling of cinnamon, my heart filled to the stretching point by the beauty of the land and the people who live here. That is why this is a love story. And that is why I believe everyone should, at least once, forget about airports and enjoy a close-up look at what is still here in this country, and free for the taking, if only we will slow down and look.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.