On the Road Again

I have to admit, I had a little Willie Nelson running through my head the last couple of hours. You see, after nearly three years off, my family and I have started off on the classic great American roadtrip. Yes, Amy and I packed the three kids (Margaret - 8, Caroline - 5, and James - 21 months) into the van this morning and have headed out for a 17 day adventure.

Ok, we might not be covering the traditional National Parks or hitting Walley World like the Griswold's, and many of our stops will be on the "slow and easy" side of things, but our trip will be none-the-less entertaining or adventurous.

Case in point, our first destination of the day :

Dickeyville, Wisconsin, population 1043, and located in extreme southwest Wisconsin (in fact, only about a 15 minute drive over the Mississippi from Dubuque).

What, pray tell is in Dickeyville, Wisconsin I can hear you asking. Why, the Dickeyville Grotto of course.

WHAT, pray tell, is the Dickeyville Grotto I can hear a few of you (mostly the non-Iowans/non-Catholics in the group) asking.

For those of you who don't know, a grotto (at least in this context) is an artificial cave often built in a garden. The Dickeyville Grotto was built on the grounds of Dickeyville's Holy Ghost Catholic church by Father Mathius Wernerus from 1920 to 1930. It consists of a series of "grottos" which are elaborate concrete structures embedded with glass, fancy stones, shells, etc to produce patterns or mosaics. Most of the grottos on the grounds in Dickeyville are religious in nature (honoring various saints, the gifts of the holy spirit, Christ, etc.) while at least one is a patriotic grotto (with tributes to Lincoln, Washington, and Christopher Columbus).

While it wouldn't have been worth driving miles out of our way to see it, I'm glad we stopped by as the start to our adventure. The girls were quite fascinated by the wide assortment of objects that went into the concrete making up the grottos. I am just amazed at the amount of time and effort that would have been involved. Of course, getting a chance to eat a picnic lunch and take my picture in a town called Dickeyville is just extra icing on the cake!

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