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Published: January 8th 2008
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Obfuscator writes: We left Madison in the morning, and turned southwest. We had originally been intending to drive pretty much just south, and perhaps a bit east, to see more of Tennessee and Kentucky, before turning west. The change of heart resulted from a decision to get to Seattle by the end of the month. Knowing that that only leaves us a few weeks, we figured we had to at least be moving in a more direct path, which will allow us to spend some time in the middle of the country.
There's a lot of pretty terrain between Madison and Dubuque, Iowa, but unfortunately we chose to leave on a very foggy day, so mostly it was all enshrouded and difficult to see. There were also some potentially interesting stops in the area, but we decided to skip them for the time being, since any states in the immediate area around Wisconsin can always be visited with relative ease at some future point. We did stop at a red dot on our Wisconsin map called Pendarvis Cornish Restoration, since we just sort of had to know what it was.
It turns out to be a rather nifty looking
historical site, but it was closed for the season. Apparently the site was home to some serious mining back in the day, and a boatload of Cornish immigrants. It was named for some Duke of Cornwall, or something. Funny enough, they misspelled his name, in order to avoid offending him, since they hadn't asked for his permission or anything. Evidently, when he learned of the site, he was honored, and the only thing he was offended about was that they hadn't spelled his name right.
We pressed on to Galena, IL, where U.S. Grant had a home. Luckily, the home was open, and we were given a nice, if brief tour by a kindly old lady. To be fair, the tour was sort of necessarily brief, because the home wasn't terribly large, and Grant really didn't live there particularly long. We did learn a bit more about Grant's family though. His children seemed to have a propensity for divorce, as two or three of his four were divorced at least once. One of his sons accompanied him during the Civil War, when he was only 12 or 13, which we hadn't previously known. For what it's worth, this was
the home Grant lived in when he was elected President.
Galena is a beautiful little town, though on as grey a day as it was, it lost a bit of its luster. While in a Visitor's Center, we learned that there was a historic stockade and cabin that was the only surviving structure from the Blackhawk War, so we ventured out to find it. We were in luck because the only day of the week that particular site is open to the public without an appointment is on Sunday, during the hours we found ourselves there. We met the owner of the building just inside, and she proceeded to take us on a ridiculously thorough tour of the cabin. I say ridiculously thorough because in point of fact, not all that much of importance ever happened there, but she and others have spent a huge amount of time documenting what did. It was a fascinating place though.
The cabin actually was built prior to the Blackhawk Wars, and records show it existing as early as 1828. It was built by a trader using a stone foundation, and vertical timbers, which was quite uncommon at the time. Later, when
war with Indians loomed, a stockade was built around the property and it was turned into a refuge in case of attack. The Indians never attacked Galena though, and so it was never really put to use. The house and stockade then passed through a series of owners until it came to rest in the hands of the current proprietor, who has, as mentioned, put an awful lot of effort into researching all the previous owners, and what they've done to the building.
By the time we left the stockade, it was getting fairly late, so we took a short walk down to the scenic downtown of Galena and grabbed a burger at a local bar and grill, before setting out to find some camping that was open year round. We arrived fairly late at our campground after a wrong turn that took us about 30 miles out of the way, but since we had already eaten, nothing significant was lost. We set up our hooch, watched some Star Trek on the laptop, and went to bed.
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