South Bend, Indiana: Studebaker Museum

This was a wonderful car museum.  There were three floors of  cars, carriages and army vehicle that the Studebaker brothers made. David really enjoyed the museum and I enjoyed it even thought I'm not a car enthusiast.

The Studebaker brothers

All of the rest of the images are the various vehicles we saw inside the museum.

South Bend, Indiana J. D. Oliver's Home

J. D. Oliver was an American inventor. He was the founder of the South Bend Iron Words, which was renamed the Oliver Equipment Company when it was incorporated. The pictures are of his elegant 38-room mansion.

The Stables

The Oliver's Mansion

Above the front door

The ceiling on the front porch

The furnishings were the originals of the Oliver family.  There were some updates in the mansion in the fifties by one of the daughters.  

South Bend, Indiana ~ Notre Dame and the Chocolate Factory

The part of the Notre Dame campus we saw was beautiful.  We could not drive through a lot of it.

The South Bend Chocolate Factory

This a small factory with only forty people working there most of the time. During the busy candy seasons, they double their work force.

Notice the cacoa fruit grows on the trunk of the tree.

Sheets of caramel for turtles

This is there largest candy that they make.  It is 3 feet tall and solid chocolate.

We really enjoyed the tour. We learned that the cacao is a fruit. So when you eat chocolate, you can tell yourself that you are getting a serving of fruit!  We also enjoyed all the samples we tried. 

Tupelo, Mississippi

In Tupelo we visited the boyhood home of Elvis Presley.

Elvis' boyhood home

The church he attended in Tupelo

Inside of the church they had a film about the time 

Elvis sang his first solo in church. They had a screen in the front and on both sides, so felt like you were sitting there in that service.

There was also a very nice museum, but were unfortunately not allowed to take pictures.