Red Wing, MN.

Sunday Morning. We really wanted to get an early start today.....which we did. We had planned our route, without knowing just what the roads would be like. When we left Federal Dam it was overcast with the possibility of mist or maybe even rain. Lucky for us we had the rain early before the weather made a turn for the better....we ended up having sunshine, cool temps And lots of those pretty fluffy clouds. Heading south we took back roads, what we did not know that in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, the route we chose would take us by 9,000 of them. The roads were narrow, winding and made me very nervous. Good thing Tom was driving. Hurry, hurry Nancy look......no it was not a Moose, but it was a hugh Elk. I guess I still must look for that elusive Moose. I can't imagine where all the Moose have gone.

Our goal for the day was to arrive in Red Wing, MN at an Indian Casino, usually good restaurants and cheap RV parking!! I gave Tom a wrong turn and we ended up in Wisconsin for about 35 miles.....but we found the way to where we wanted to camp. So, all's well that ends well.

We were crossing the Mississippi River many times during the day and I conveniently

opened a window and tried to get a couple of photos.

I don't think I did all that well though. Sorry 'bout that, maybe Tom can still find a couple more photos for you to enjoy.

Since I don't have much to blog about tonight I thought you might like a little history of the river. Did you know that ten different states

border the Mississippi? How about the length being 2,552 miles.....that is what it states at the headwaters at Lake Itasca in Minnesota. Did you know that if a raindrop fell in Lake Itasca it would take 90 days to reach the Gulf of Mexico? That the width of the river at Lake Itasca is 20-30 feet wide and the depth less than 3 feet. The widest part of the river is near Alton, IL. where it is about 1 mile wide. The deepest part of the river is at Algiers Point in New Orleans - about 200 feet?

We have found that after awhile the road looks like all river roads......trees lining it, and you really don't see much of the river. We are enjoying ourselves and seeing the U.S.A. This country of ours is something else to see and the people are just great everywhere we go.

Monday morning and we are going to be on the road to Dubuque, Iowa. We manage to get up and get going really fast, we did not unhook the car last night so.......it is up, move the slides in and we can leave. We are going to follow U.S.61 all day. The hills (?) are really shaped weird around this part of the state.

The road takes us into Wisconsin near LaCrosse......and then we travel away from the river for half the day. I want to tell anyone traveling in Wisconsin do NOT travel on U.S.61 in the state. I think this is the worst road we have traveled on in the whole US of A...it grabs your tires, is bumpy and has that annoying thump, thump, thump of the strips on the pavement that just doesn't go away. When we cross the river into Iowa at Dubuque it is too early to stop......so we look at the map and decide to go further south. We arrive near

Muscatine, Iowa in the early afternoon at a Corp Of Engineers park nearby so we go to find out if they have room for us. They do, so we are here until

Wednesday morning. Two days of travel and we want to spend a day resting. Our campsite is right on the Mississippi River. The mosquitos sure know to come out at night. We came inside early so we would not get eaten alive.Last night when I was walking Charley I was lucky......on the river a barge was being shoved upstream by a tugboat. It had lights on and was a pretty site to see. We have zero light pollution here, so the lights on the boat were different colors, yellow and red and green. Wonderful!!! What fun we are having seeing sights like that.
It started raining about 1:00 a.m. It was still raining when we awoke for the day. Gee, I wondered if it would stop?Tuesday, I wanted to see the pearl button museum in downtown Muscatine. My Dad used to sell them in all of the Knepps stores. Tom took me downtown to the museum....but he waits for me in the car. While I am in the museum Tom "people watched" on the street and saw a restaurant where all the locals seemed to go. When I came out of the museum, we went to look for the restaurant, possibly for a lunch. It was cool... in the basement of an old building and the interior was just plain neat.

After lunch we went down to the riverfront. There is a great lineal park. We can see the bridge to Illinois, they have a fountain and a statue of a boy with fishing pole.

It is still early, Tom asked if I would like to go to the Herbert Hoover Presidential library and Museum?? You betcha....... So we headed to West Bend, Iowa. We arrived with just two hours left to tour. This is a great museum. I did not know what a humanitarian Herbert Hoover was. The museum was very enlighting. After we toured I walked up to where Herbert and Lou Hoover are buried on the grounds of the museum.

A good day, yes, and no!!.... it never stopped raining.