Looking For The North Woods-Part 1

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Well, here I go again. After several attempts at this travel blogging I will try a new way. The trip is over, but I will post several days at a time and see how it goes. I might stick in a photo now and then.

Past attempts have been thwarted by not easily finding wifi hot spots. I do not want to do my traveling according to the location of such places.

By the way, this is from our personal log and might contain weird things, but if we weren't weird people, we wouldn't be doing this. If anything is too inflammatory, it is George's fault. Here goes!!!!!


It is June 17, 2007 and we haven’t left yet. Maybe we will get away tomorrow. It is hot in the Midwest, like 90 to 95, and will cool down in a few days. That might spur us onward.

Now it is the 18th and we have called Bill and Joyce since we plan to leave tomorrow. Should have gone to AAA for some new maps and maybe a guide book. Too much trouble though.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007,

Two days past the above introduction and we are finally one the road. As Nan Lou said when I called to tell her, “It’s about time!”

Ham was up at dawn and I got up about 9:30 or so. He was fiddling with the computer; and, I assume he had been doing that for all the hours from dawn on. You have to realize that dawn comes very early.

So, I got cleaned up and dressed in my travel clothes that had been laid out for two weeks. Was it to happen? I didn’t know; because, Ham was very busy. Being ever the hopeful one, I started loading last minute things into the van. Spurred on by my enthusiastic loading, Ham quickly finished his business and joined in.

We actually drove out of the driveway about 1:30 and had to go by the post office to stop the mail since the Heiles have planned their trip beginning sometime in mid July. We may be home by then; who knows?

We drove to the west side Panera’s for a bagel even though I thought Hammie needed something more substantial in his tummy. I think he just wanted to see the short hostess again. Since it was late we gorged on bagels, fruit, and sticky bun. His hostess friend told him about a number to call if it’s impossible to connect to wi fi. Then, she gave him nice little shoulder pats and rubs, which I assume he liked very much.

Then we headed north on I-65 to Lebanon and then went west to I-74. It started out raining this morning, but by this time, it had turned into a beautiful day. I like it when the corn isn’t full grown because then you can see all the colors off into the distance. The sky was blue and the fields were varying shades of green. The crown vetch was in bloom along with the wild roses and trumpet vines. It truly was a lovely day with the temperatures in the low to mid eighties because of the rain shower. Ham tells me it is going to be in the nineties again. But, perhaps, by that time, we will be far enough north to have pleasant temperatures. I still would rather have hot than cold, however.

We had a brief need to turn around in Bloomington, IL when the road veered sharply and we weren’t ready for it. Then, after much searching, in the atlas, for a Wal-Mart in Peoria, we found a Cracker Barrel on the outskirts. Ham had a grilled chicken salad, which looked good, and I had a kids chicken deal with turnip greens. Ham got permission to stay here and that was a good deal because it is right off the highway and we don’t have to fight city streets hunting the Wal-Mart.

After a rousing game of Scrabble, which put poor, tired Hammie to sleep while sitting up and trying to think, it was time to write this and put our tired bones to beddy bye.

It is warmer in the van than it was in Florida in the summer, last year.

Good night! nl


Wednesday, June 20, 2007

We had a good nights sleep in Cracker Barrel’s lot for parking. It wasn’t overly hot and it was quiet. Of course, I was parked so the morning sun fully hit Nan Lou’s side and it did warm up pretty quickly. That spurred us to get up and into the restaurant before ten; I was hoping to get oatmeal that is cut off at ten in the Barrel. We made it and both of us ate fairly healthy. I just wish they had better coffee.

We got back on I-74, or should I say the 74, and drove to the first rest area where Nan Lou took over since I was a wee bit sleepy and my back was giving me a fit. She drove to the next rest area fighting the unused knee muscles and gave the wheel back to me. We were about 20 or 30 miles from the bridge into Iowa just north of Moline, Illinois and reached it pretty quickly. I had expected to be surrounded with busy suburban traffic and was surprised at the empty interstates and wild wooded terrain. We crossed the Mississippi, which wasn’t as wide the Ohio river and stopped at a Subway in a little strip center up on a high hill overlooking the river.

That was the end of the interstates for us, for a while anyway, and we took US 67, a good old two-lane heading north along the Mississippi. It was called a scenic river road, and was for the few short miles it was near the river before veering away. There were a couple of cute little old river towns with nice old brick houses and one larger town, Clinton, along the route. I hadn’t paid much attention to the map and soon we found that route 67 ended and we were on a couple of other numbered highways. We took what looked most likely and ended up crossing the Mississippi on an old two-lane bridge. On the other side we found we were back in Illinois. I thought we might have been far enough north to be in southern Wisconsin, but we weren’t. We were on the outskirts of Savanna, Illinois and as soon as we turned left and headed north toward Wisconsin, which is about 30 crow flying miles away. Almost immediately we saw a sign for the Mississippi Palisades State Park. The name was familiar to me for some reason, probably from maps, and we decided to stop there for the night even though it was only about 3 PM. I thought palisades meant a cliff thing possibly with a river beneath it. But, our Web Word dictionary states, “Fortification consisting of a strong fence made of stakes driven into the ground.” I saw no fence, no fort, no stakes. The entrance fee seems to be naught and the sites are $15 for electric and $10 for non-electric. They’re many sites and we were given a map by the park guy and told to find one and he would collect later. Sounded good to me, and we did. It is almost 9 PM and pretty dark and no one has come to collect, yet. In fact, the park is about 95% empty. It has many sites and many winding roads in the campground. It is also very wooded with many big cottonwoods and a few other lesser trees. Our section has about 10 to 15 sites and we have it all to ourselves.

After a wee nap we had a LER supplied diner, a game of Scrabble, and a walk to the dumpster. Nan Lou also had a good thumping session as I started this entry.

It was pretty nice to get off Eisenhower’s interstates and onto a two-lane road after a day and two-thirds of trucks and speeding idiots. It wasn’t nearly as bad as most interstates, but it was an interstate. I guess they serve their purpose in taking us out of familiar areas in a hurry, most of the time, to the nicer, smaller roads. The small towns are nice to see and the mid-sized ones are usually OK too.

Maybe tomorrow we will squiggle into Wisconsin to Prairie du Chien and see if that is where we stopped at a Cabella’s once upon a time. Or maybe we will get lost and cross the Mississippi two or three more times.

Hey, guess what? The camp guy just came to collect. He gave us a $5 discount ‘cause we’re over 62. That makes this site only $10, and it has electricity. Tomorrow I will try to find the overlook he recommended. He thought the lack of campers was because of the high gas prices. Maybe we should go home. Maybe we like the lack of crowds and it is worth a few bucks more to have nice places to ourselves. Maybe I have run out of words. hb

Ham, with unusual modesty, whooped my butt in Scrabble. He had a seven letter word, which he does often; and, then got the same number of points for playing the Q on a triple word score. The killer player didn’t have a gentlemanly bone in his body. nl


Thursday, June 21, 2007,

Today is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. Oh my!

Before leaving the park, we drove to one of several overlooks in the park to view the Mississippi River and its marshes and estuaries. It was a fine view but we decided one was enough and bypassed the others.

We drove back to Subola, Iowa by way of the blue bridge to find Manny’s Pizza place, which Ham found on the computer. He thought by some very strange quirk of fate it just might be related to the Manny restaurants in Florida. It is a very small town, the “downtown” part of it looking like a ghost town. Seeing only one café in the whole town, we stopped to ask a couple of older women, with a lovely garden in front of a trig R.T. type of house. They said the only Manny’s was in Savannah, Illinois. So, back across the blue bridge we went. This made the third time.

Finally finding said Manny’s, we realized it was nothing more than a large bar and had no resemblance to one of our favorite breakfast places in the state, far south. However, a new restaurant had opened up called Happy Joe’s. We knew it was new because of large signs in the windows. It was a lunch pizza buffet sort of place, but we ordered to veggie personal pizzas because they had sauerkraut on them and we wondered what they would be like. Actually, the crispy crust, vegetables, and sauerkraut; and, was very tasty, indeed. Ham said he liked it better than Bazbeaux and Uno’s. What a Philistine! We tried a piece of their desert pizza and it was pretty good but too sweet. Ham learned that Happy Joe’s was an Iowa outfit and were all over the area. In fact, later on in the day, we found another one.

Hamilton finally decided he wanted to go north on the Iowa side of the river, so we again traversed over the blue bridge. This made the fourth time, if you have been following this at all!

The road was very nice. Smooth and windy over gently rolling countryside! I mentioned that it was reminiscent of the Lexington, Kentucky area. Hamilton thought it wasn’t too interesting. And then, Whammy! Ham said, “Look, look!” And there was the huge violin painted on a silo that we had definitely seen and photographed years ago. Proving without a shred of doubt that we had been on this very road before. Turning about, we drove back to it, to again record it, for posterity, I suppose.

So, wishing to see a different road, we went back to Subola, all the while Hamilton composing limericks in his head, and then retraced our path by going over the blue bridge one more time. This made the fifth and last time, if you’re still with me. At this point in time, we had gone 43 miles and were back where we started.

At last heading northward we came to Galena, which was an adorable town of ancient buildings built in layers going down to the river. The “historic” main street was filled with all kinds of shops. I spotted a coffee shop right away and Ham valiantly tried to find a parking place. They were virtually non-existent and the city lots cost $5. So, after a bit more driving about, Ham spotted a vacant parking space in a very convenient location. The coffee shop was nice with comfy chairs and we tried to think of an equivalent one in Indianapolis, but couldn’t come up with one. The iced decaf soy latte was better than Starbucks and Ham liked his regular coffee. We relaxed and took pictures of ourselves. Hamilton practiced looking Oh So Cool with his Wayfarers on and taking his own picture. If anyone had paid attention to us, I’m sure they would have thought we were quite certifiable. Ham posing; my going into gales!

Then we took a little stroll down the main street. There was a leather shop with lots of Harley stuff that had some really good bargains. But, alas, we couldn’t find a thing to spend money on.

After starting out again we took the road up the hill and admired the churches and old houses. Galena has some historical history, I’m sure; and it really has some interesting, restored buildings, houses, and churches.

Then, it was on to Dubuque. Ham looked it up on the map program and we found the Wal-Mart without any difficulty. He got permission to stay for the night and directions to Panera’s. We went there for dinner. But, Ham had a salad. And, all at once, Boom! He crashed!

We got back to Wal-Mart just as the rain started. Ham went to bed forthwith. He said he just hadn’t had protein and was wiped out. But, he also said he felt like he was getting a sore throat. Yikes! I hope that’s not the case!

So, I read a bit while Hammie napped off and on; the thunder boomed, the rain started coming down in earnest! That about takes care of the day to the best of my faulty ability.

I think I’ll play a game! nl

Ah yes, I composed extremely good limericks in my head and recited them to Nan Lou who was polite enough to say a nice thing or two. I have completely forgotten them and the people of the world will never be able to benefit from that lost beauty.

This is the 50th anniversary of Keroac’s “On The Road’. I thought it might be fun to emulate, does that mean copy, this famous bit of literature. Alas, I cannot do that since one cannot copy what one has not read. I started to read it once many years ago and found it trivial and boring and put it aside forever. Of course, we have our joint ‘On The Roads’ from the logs of all these trips; this being number 86, the bunch together having over 900 pages in total which could be printed out scroll-like ala the original Road tale.

Nan Lou just asked, “What are you adding?” I replied it was just some stream of consciousness. I have no idea what that means.

About our afternoon coffee break. Nan Lou had her first serving of gelato, a fancy Italian name for soft ice cream. She was impressed with its flavor, chocolate and hazelnut, and its soft texture. Naturally, I ate half of it and was also impressed with its cool creaminess and delicate blending of these two classic flavors into one heady flavor that tested my taste buds to recall anything more impressive. This taste prompted Nan Lou too long for the Amalfi coastal region of Italy. Ah yes, we could be spending the night in the parking lot of the local Wal-Martorino slurping fresh gelato from their food martorino section. Maybe our next winter trip, OK? hb

Friday, June 22, 2007

It rained most of the night; and about seven I woke up, cold. Ham was all curled up in a little ball. I changed my sleeping shorts to my long pajama bottoms and finally, with my lower half warmer, was able to get back to sleep.

Even though we had shopping to do at our host’s place, we went right to Panera’s for breakfast. We checked out the Wi Fi connection in the parking lot and it worked. However, Ham had to get on AOL through Mozilla and the format really threw me for a loop. I didn’t want to sit and write long replies while we were both hungry, so we went in for our bagel, fruit, and sticky bun. Just like home, except Hammie had to toast our bagels. Phooey!

This next part is really skimpy. I do remember that we seemed to traverse the crest of a large hill and the view of the very nice farms and patchwork quilt of the farm fields was quite beautiful. There was a sign at an overlook declaring we were looking at the Mississippi River Valley. We couldn’t see the river.

Ham wanted to follow it as much as possible. However, with road signs that didn’t agree with the map program, we found ourselves lost several times. Also, some of the roads were unpaved and that didn’t seem pleasant, so we had to retrace our steps a few times.

Finally, we went back over the river to Prairie du Chien and low and behold, there was a smoked fish place. We entered to the yummy smells. There were all kinds of smoked fish. Much more variety than we have ever seen in Michigan. Smoked sturgeon, smoked salmon, even smoked carp (yuck!). As Ham was paying for our purchases, some cheese, smoked salmon, and smoked chub, I wondered around and saw wooden decoys in the $165 range. Also, there was a freezer just filled with elk and bison and frog legs, etc.

Since it is 8:30 P.M. we have missed the catfish and frog fry this place has every Friday night. Oh well!

On to Mc Donalds where we pigged out on not-so-healthy food. We were both really hungry; and since Hammie hasn’t had protein in two days his blood sugar must have hit zero.

He remembered we had been to Cabela’s here and he got directions from the woman in the fish store. It wasn’t too far away; but then again, I don’t think Prarie du Chien is a very big town. It seems to be a distribution center because the store is attached to huge barny type structures with no windows. Large parking lots though!

The store itself was a bit disappointing because I think we had it mixed up with a larger Cabela’s It had a wall of natural looking rock and real waterfalls with “minny, minny” stuffed animals in natural poses. Even a moose getting attacked by an Alaskan Brown Bear! The huge fish tank was smaller than the large circular one we remembered.
We are comfortably parked in their large parking lot for the night.

So, Ham has awakened from his nap. He has been bothered by back aches this entire trip of three and a half days. So anyway, he will probably correct and add to this report. This is about all I can remember, though. nl


Saturday, June 23, 2007

We were awake and up and moving about the LER by 10 AM. It was a little warm in the LER from our own hot little bodies since it was in the low 70’s outside. Last night didn’t get as cold as the night before, the lowest temperature I saw on the gauge was 59 degrees at 4 AM.

The Cabela’s store is about 2 miles north of Prairie du Chien and we headed back toward town to look for a sturdy breakfast. Nan Lou spotted a restaurant almost immediately and we made a quick turn into their parking lot. She had a Polynesian bagel that was a rather bready bagel with ham slice, pineapple, and Swiss cheese. It was OK except for the bagel. I had an omelet made with imitation eggs that had ham and cheese and hash browns. Mine was pretty plentiful and good, and I couldn’t finish it. It wasn’t as good as one at La Peeps, but about $2 less.

We gassed up for $3.09 per gallon and went up route 35, the Wisconsin version of the scenic river road. It was much more scenic than Iowa’s version with many views of the Mississippi and all of its islands. It seemed to be pretty narrow in places but we think it just seemed that way because of especially long islands blocking our view to the other side. At times it seemed to be very wide with a lot of small islands all over the place. We saw a herd of white pelicans from a long distance and positively identified them using the 8 power Nikons and our expert identification skills. That’s one thing about us, when it comes to birds, we know all there is to know, especially those in herds.

There were skinny little towns every now and then hugging the road and overlooking the river. The railroad ran on a narrow strip of land between the highway and the river, it was a busy one at that. All of the engines were BNSF, the outfit that took over the Santa Fe. Most of them were loaded with containers although I did see one with all gondolas that looked like they had been full of coal, but were now empty. I am guessing they are coming from Duluth where they are unloaded from freighters from Asia since a lot of them had Asiatic names on them. There were a lot of semi trailers on one train with familiar names from the semi trailers we see on the interstates.

When we reached La Crosse, Wisconsin we spotted a WalMart and did our first shopping on this trip. Then Nan Lou decided that it was time to feed me and we went to a Culver’s and ate a grilled chicken sandwich that was up a grade or two from the same at Wendy’s. Nan Lou also had a malt that was so thick it was almost too hard to suck through the straw. We did manage to do it though. At this time we decided to stay in Wisconsin and follow the river and not cross over into Minnesota. We came to Perrot State Park and were sent on to Merrick State Park since there was no room for us at Perrot. Merrick had three electric sites left and we took one for $19, not too bad a fee, but the $10 park entrance on top of that made it too much. Mississippi Palisades was nicer and it was only $10 with the discount we received from the ranger. On a trip not too long ago we stayed in other Illinois State Parks for pretty a reasonable price too. Wisconsin is like Florida though, they think they are a big hot shot tourist attraction and gouge the poor itinerant campers in their one hundred to three hundred thousand dollar motor homes. Sometimes it just sucks being rich. I’ll bet Minnesota will be the same. And we all know that Michigan is over priced and has been for several hundred years.

We took a little nap, Nan Lou has threatened to fix fish for supper, and I do this. But now I am through. hb

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Photos

Fiddle
A silo full of fiddles??? Come on, I can't believe that. But, I guess you gotta keep 'em somewhere. Wonder where the pianos are.

Galena
Galena, Illinois had some interesting shops on this restored main drag. Even a great coffee shop that made Starbucks look pretty punk.

Cool
Anybody trying to look cool just doesn't quite cut it. But I try, I try.

Ice What
Tasty Freeze? No way! It's Gelato, direct from Italy. Let's all sing, "When the moon hits your eye, like a big piece of pie." That's what I thought Dean sang, or sung, or singed.

Five Times
Why did the AntiTourist cross the bridge? So he could cross it again....and again...and---get my point sweetie?

Three Things
Three modes of transportation; river, rail, and highway. I think there might be others, not too sure though.

Locks
This is a roadside sign. Read it and get smart. I've read them all. I will now become a History Professor at Harvard.

Big River
Some call it the Mississippi. I call it Big, which is much easier to spell. I think we'll look for the headwaters, whatever that means.

Train
There are a lot of trains around here. I seldom see any back home in Indiana. Indiana turns the train roadbeds into walking trails.

Wally
A rainy night at Wally's. But the presence of the big, bright sign provides us with comfort against the terrors of the night.