Mississippi River Oct. 2010

On Sunday Afternoon, October the 3rd. Karen and I headed to Moline Illinois so I could attend a conference there. Moline is the headquarters for John Deere Tractors and part of the conference was in one of their buildings that had a bunch of their new product line and displays of quite a bit of older equipment going back to the steel wheel days. The other distinctions of Moline is that it is on the Mississippi River. The hotel we stayed in and the conference center were right on the River and there was a nice trail system that we used several times while we were there. While I was at the conference, Karen did some shopping at some of the small shops near by and spent one day on a tour with spouses that also attended the conference. One afternoon there was a long break between sessions and since the weather was really nice we rented a couple of bikes and went out on the river trail for an hour or so. One other note worthy feature of Moline is that the oldest arsenal in the country occupies a several acre island in the middle of the river. There are several really nice lime stone buildings, several active factory buildings, a museum of guns and cannons that is pretty impressive, housing for staff, a golf course, and a national military cemetery as well as a confederate cemetery. Apparently during the Civil War the area included a prisoner of war camp for captured confederate soldiers. Not all of them survived.

The trail is between the River Road and the River.

We rode by several boats and barges. This one apparently is available for excursions

The river was way above flood stage and there were areas where the water level was above the River Road by about a foot. Luckily the bike trail was high and dry most of the way.

The trail apparently continued on for about 60 miles. We only did about six or seven miles and then returned. It was good to get some exercise after sitting in meetings most of the day.

Our rough plan was that after the conference, depending on weather, we would head either north or south and follow the river for a while. We anticipated driving from little town to town stopping occasionally to walk around and to see if we could spot some fall color.

As it turned out the weather was great and the word at the conference was that we needed to head quite a ways north to see fall color.

There were several places along the drive where we could get to a high vantage point and see the river as it stretched out through the valley.

The first of these was at a state park called Palisades. The last time I was here was back in the late 1950's or early 60's. My folks had taken us on a vacation to see Uncle Rich and Aunt Beulah in Clinton Iowa just across the river. As with many of our vacations Dad ended up in a project so our camping trip was cut short but I remember being here and we drove through the camp ground where we would have camped.

Up on the high ground above the river we got our first view of some leaf color. Most of the low land near the river was still pretty green.

Then we headed on up the river to the next little town.

We stopped in the town of Galena. This town was quite prosperous back in the day when lead mining was at its peak. The town declined after lead mining was stopped and the town slipped into a few years of decline. In the 1970's some folks decided to make the town an attraction and reoccupied it with specialty shops and restaurants. It has some of the charm of a 1900's small town with just a bit of shopping mall thrown in. It was fun to walk up and down the main street and go into a few of the shops.

We had lunch a nice cafe' and headed out on the Great River Road again.

We decided to press on to get a little further north in hopes of seeing more fall color. Late in the afternoon crossed into Wisconsin and decided to stop in the town of Platteville to get some Wisconsin travel information. It turned out that Platteville was a pretty interesting little town. There is a University there that was one of the early mining schools. That's what the "M" stands for that is displayed prominently on a hillside east of town.

We decided to spend the night in Platteville and get an early start heading further north. There is an observation area up above the big "M" so we drove over to take a look.

A little over 200 steps later we were at the top.

Supposedly on a clear day you can see five states for here. It was a very pleasant evening we stayed there for an hour or so and watched the sun set.

There were beautiful views of the Wisconsin landscape the weather was nice it was quiet and peaceful.

An odd thing was a chunk of concrete that was probably a bench base of something had several of these penguins stenciled on it. Sort of strange here in Wisconsin.

That evening we drove through the college campus and then found a nice pizza place and had dinner.

The next morning we took a short side trip to Mineral Point. It was recommended to us by an artist at Galena as a good place to visit. Mineral point at been a mining town as well back in the day, but was pretty much a sleepy little town that had a few nice shops and several artists that have settled there.

One of the things we discovered was the use of limestone in the buildings. This limestone was a lot darker, more tan, than the lime stone in Indiana.

We walked up and down the main street found some galleries open and found out about a pottery shop out on the edge of town.

The pottery shop, below, originally had been a brewery. The folks that have it now are about our age and have operated a pottery shop there for about 15 years. It was one of the best pottery operations I have seen in a long time. When we got there the husband was closing up their kiln to do a firing. I spent a half hour visiting with the man as he stacked fire brick to close the opening. It was an interesting stop. We went back into town, had lunch and headed back west to the Great River Road to head north again.

Along the way I spotted this really interesting grass. The seed head was bright white and was quite a contrast with the blue sky.

We also were starting to see some different landscapes and farming practices. The round bales were corn stocks.

These buildings in the little village of Potosi were also converted into a huge art gallery where dozens of local artists displayed their work.

I thought this was a nice setting for a church.

Further on down the road we came upon a state park right at the intersection of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. There were some nice outlooks that allowed for some great views of the river valley.

There was a trail system that followed the cliff and provided access to several different views.

Karen is checking to make sure this makes sense. "Are you sure we want to climb down all these steps and then have to climb back up again?"

"Sure its a piece of cake"

Well we made it, and the views were nice.

At the top of the area away from the edge of the cliff was a nice shelter building that would be great for outtings.

The sun was bright and the color through the leaves was brilliant. We continued on north and stopped for the night at Prairie Du Chien. We found a nice little motel near the river and went down to watch the sun set.

We spotted this river boat and barge coming up the river and parking for the night.

There were already a couple of river boats parked. I think that some of these had been there for a couple of days. Since the river was so high, in flood stage, the amount of river traffic was really low.

Looking back to the east to the hills along the Great River Road we could see the sun highlighting the fall color.

As the sun set we got a last nice shot of the river as the mosquitos started to attack. There was a Cabellas store on the short drive back to the motel so we stopped in for few minutes

Karen has always wanted her own moose.

In the morning we headed out again stopping a each little town. Back in the late 1800's and early 1900's I suspect that little towns like this had great promise and were bustling little ports.

Every so often along the river the Corp of Army Engineers has built Lock and Dams to keep the river navigatable. We stopped at one of these to see if we could get some pictures. We encountered this interesting vessel anchored just off the river bank. It turned out to be a barge that had be there for dozens of years and has been converted into a tavern. I suspect that that part of the river would have been a bit wild on a summer's evening.

The dams held the level of the river up stream at point where the river boat with barges could pass through to the next lock.

Here is a view from above another Lock an Dam further up the River.

We were able to find this outlook and get shots up and down the river to show the difference in the width of the river above and below the dam.

There is normally a power plant near every dam.

There is also a contruction office complex anchored just down stream of the dam road where the maintenance crews are headquartered.

Here is an example of the locks.

On the way down form the outlook we spotted this hill side with quite an array of color.

Up stream from the dam the river looked more like a lake.

There were several sailboats out that day.

We stopped at this road side park and ate lunch that we had gotten at a cheese store earlier in the day.

After a late lunch we headed on north and ended up in the little town of Diamond Bluff. This town had been completely overtaken by art galleries and antique shops. We visited with one of the shop keepers who told us that if we wanted to see fall color to head east away from the river.

The shop owner was right the color was brighter up on the higher ground and away from the river.

Generally we were needing to head back home anyway so this was a realatively good place start heading east. We travelled several mile through mid Wisconsin farm country. Here was another nice setting for a church.

The rolling country side was beautiful and we really enjoyed the drive over back country roads.

We eventually got over to an interstate highway about as the sun set and I continued to drive on back home. We rolled into our driveway about 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning It was a great trip.