Like many Americans, Merlin Mullet wants to start his own business.
But Merlin isn't merely looking for a better job - he's searching for his roots.
For him, working at home and living a simple life is almost an article of faith. He's Amish.
 Many non-Amish people of Nappanee, IN seek out services of Amish craftsmen because of their quality work. One local Amish family has their son working in the family trade - shoeing a horse.
For generations, the Amish lived apart, with most of them on farms. But over the years, there's been less and less land to go around. The Amish, or Plain People, are a growing population. They have large families and most of the children choose the Amish way.
You can only divide a farm so many times before it becomes too small to support a family. In northern Indiana, the land crunch came to a head in Merlin's generation. His grandfather was a farmer. His dad was a farmer at first, but eventually took a paying job. These days, many Amish work in the mobile home manufacturing businesses in Nappanee, about midway across the state on Route 6.
"They're great workers," said Nappanee Mayor Larry Thompson. The mobile home industry pays well, and money that the Amish earn goes back into the community, Larry said.
But Merlin worries that the money and the outside lifestyle is leading people away from their beliefs.
 Many Amish folk in Nappanee, IN work and shop at local business. A local grocery store has separate parking for Amish buggies so they can tie up their horses while they shop for food.
"When they started taking jobs in the factories, my grandpa said that was the beginning of the end for us. I think he might have been right," Merlin said.
That's why Merlin and his wife Mary Lou started a small family-style restaurant in a converted barn on their property earlier this year. They want to get back to the old ways, to their roots.
"I know I'm not going to be able to farm. My main goal is to be at home with my family," Merlin said.
The Amish believe that their world should revolve around Christ. Clothing fashions, lavish possessions and other worldly attractions are distractions.
Here's an Amish joke: A family is leaving a Sunday service and the man proudly says to his wife, "I do believe we were the plainest people there."
You get the point. The fancy clothes aren't the problem - it's the attitudes they create.
Working in the factories isn't the problem - it's the attitudes it creates.
Merlin can see it in his generation. He fears that some of his contemporaries like their new lives in the shops, where the pay is good.
"It's not the work, it's the possessions that go with it. People get more independent. They say 'I don't need you.' That's not the Christian way. I think from a Christian point of view, you should want to help others," he said.
"We don't help build each other's houses as much as we did. We go get someone to do it now," he said.
Merlin thinks he can leave the shop in two or three years, because business is good at the restaurant. Mary Lou does the cooking and she does it well. I know because we ate there. My only complaint was that I was full before the dessert arrived.
BIBLE BELT?
If you live in the Amish areas of northern Indiana, tourists will ask you questions. What are the Amish like? Why do they dress that way? Can we take their picture?
And more sophisticated questions like: What do they believe or what's the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites?
Here are the answers (from someone who learned all he knows about the subject in the past few days.)
1. They're regular, religious people.
2. They believe in a simple life uncomplicated by fashion. Each community decides what is appropriate. Some allow their members to have tractors, for example, while others don't. And some allow only certain kinds of tractors.
3. Photos? Only if you're very careful not to take pictures of their faces. They consider that a graven image. It's best to ask first.
4-5. I can't answer the hard questions. (Just like in school.)
 Dedicated in 1952 the The Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University, IN is one of the largest collegiate chapels in the U.S. It is recognized for its 94-foot high Mundeloh stained glass window and its world-renowned organ.
My responses come with a no-money-back guarantee. If you want a more reliable source, visit the Menno-Hof, the Mennonite-Amish center in Shipshewana, right in the heart of Indiana Amish country.
Folks in Shipshewana were besieged with questions about the Amish and Mennonites, and the visitors didn't always get the right answers.
"One of our (the Menno-Hof) founders said: There has to be a good way to answer these questions," said one tour guide.
On your way to Shipshewana, you'll see lots of horse-drawn buggies and Amish men, women and children on bicycles. At the Menno-Hof, you'll find out why.
The center tells the Mennonite, and Amish stories in an entertaining way. There's even a simulated tornado - and that's as close to Disney World as you're likely to get in Amish country.
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The Mennonites took their name from Menno Simons, a former Catholic priest who joined the Anabaptist movement, which believed people should be baptized as adults. The Mennonites also believed in nonviolence and a simple life. Back in the 1500s, people were killed for having such radical beliefs.
But the Mennonites weren't simple enough for Jacob Amman and his followers, the Amish. They broke with the Mennonites in the 1690s.
More than 30,000 people a year visit the Menno-Hof, many of them Amish.
We heard about the site from a former Mennonite, Candi Surber, who owns a bed and breakfast where we stayed in Waterloo, IN.
Candi is now a Methodist lay-speaker, but she said her Mennonite upbringing is still very much a part of her today. She believes in nonviolence and still lives a relatively simple life with religion at its core. She asked us to pray with her as we left to continue our journey. And she said she's not unusual in northern Indiana. "Religion is pretty strong here. This is the northern Bible Belt," she said.
WEATHER
This Midwest weather changes quickly. I now carry sunscreen and raincoat, no matter what it looks like in the morning.
 Heavy rainstorms flood the northern region of Indiana. With the ground already saturated - along with low-lying terrain - the water has been collecting and creating havoc to fields and roads.
Take Monday, for example. It was beautiful at 8:30. By 10:30, a few clouds were rolling in. They were the scouts for an army of nasty relatives somewhere over the horizon.
Those first clouds were saying something like:
"Scouts to leader: We've spotted Hurley. Veer six-degrees southeast.
Lightning bolts, prepare to fire at will."
Maybe I'm just getting a little paranoid? But, soon the sky was filled with dark thunderheads heading right for me. Fast. Real fast. Travis called. He was caught in a hail-storm. He wouldn't be here to rescue me.
I saw a barn about a half-mile ahead, but realized I couldn't make it and decided to scurry under a small bridge where Route 6 crosses a creek. There were lots of birds flying around like crazy under the bridge. There were other critters, too, but I won't get into that.
The rain got so heavy I had to move deeper under the bridge. But it was a pleasant break, safe from the storm - until a lightening bolt struck near the bridge. I saw see the yellow bolt strike near the riverbank and the thunder came instantly. It sounded like a pistol, fired about three feet from my ear.
I moved very deep under the bridge.
Soon the rain let up and the thunder was a distant growl. I waited a few more minutes more and left. When I emerged, it was sunny over my left shoulder and the dark clouds hovered over my right shoulder.
After one of these storms, you can walk past the fields of corn up to its ears in water, and sometimes in over its head. Across the street, another field will be dry.
It was cooler so I didn't put on a second round of sunscreen. By day's end, I had a sunburn.
After we arrived at the hotel, it started raining again. A heavy downpour.
Anyway, I no longer think Dorothy was pretty dumb for getting caught in a tornado. In the Midwest, weather travels at lightening speed.
RED, WHITE AND BLUE WOMAN
Sometimes, we don't know how much our lives touch others. Certainly, Carla Cain didn't realize how many people were watching when she planted a flag-shaped flower garden in front of her house in the spring of 2002.
It was small, personal 9/11 Memorial. She never knew it was a landmark - until the following year when she planted something else.
"I had 400-500 people ask me what happened to the flag," Carla said as she stood on the front porch of her house on a busy section of Route 6 in Walkerton, IN. (It's a major bypass for truckers avoiding the Interstate tolls.)
 Carla and son Edward Cain from Walkerton, IN tend to their flag shaped flower bed, due to the overwhelming request from truckers to replant the symbolic flower design they often pass.
"The truckers would stop and yell, 'Where's your flag," she said. So this year, Carla planted another flower flag. She laid out the grid in April; then she planted 285 red, white and purple petunias. She added a yellow ribbon of flowers and a blue star banner, which honors service members on active duty away from home.
"We're a military family. My son has 11 friends in the military, six of them in Iraq. I have a son-in-law in the service. My son, my daughter and my husband were all in the service," she said.
Carla invested $250 for materials - money she saved by using coupons and discounts at the supermarket. Now she and her son, Edward, do the backbreaking work of weeding and maintaining the flowerbeds.
"It's not easy when you're 50. The hard part is getting back up off the ground," Carla said.
"But it's worth it," she added. "People stop and take pictures. Truckers give me a thumbs up as they drive by."
How appropriate for someone with a red, white and blue thumb.
 Indiana Farm. Rolls of hay scatter a field outside of Nappanee. A typical landscape of Northern Indiana.
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