The River Gets Wide

Traveling on down the Mississippi River we entered Wisconsin where the river road moved more inland.  The scenery changed from the forests to large farms miles and miles of corn.  It was interesting to see how the scenery could change just moving off of the river a few miles.

The River begins to widen now and there is more river traffic with towboats pulling or pushing up to 15 barges at a time.  The main cargo is grain but they also transport iron, coal petroleum, fetilizer and sugar.  A single barge can hold 1500 tons of freight, the same as 15 train cars or 58 semi-truck trailers!  Some of the towboats even look like old padde-wheel boats which somehow look just right on the River.

We enjoyed our campsites that are right on the Mississippi-some city-owned others part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) the federal agency that operates the locks and dams on the river.  They often manage nice small campgrounds near the dams. The mosquitos and bugs and irritating and Karen had her first experience being bitten by chiggers on the bottom of her foot!

about 12 chigger bites-unbelievably itchy and painful!

The small village of Stockholm (pop.66) owns this campground on Lake Pepin
The Stockholm Pie & General Store has received national accolades for their pies and we had our share!

We stopped in Nelson (pop. 374) at the Nelson Cheese Factory where they made cheese for over 100 years.   The factory is now closed but they have a nice store with cheese, wine & ice cream.  We tried two kinds of Cheese Curds--yummy.

the factory is closed but they still sell delicious cheeses

Garlic flavored cheese curds

local beer-Spotted Cow was delicious

And of course we had to stop in Pepin, home of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and Laura's 1867 birthplace.  While the museum was small and actully didn't have any original "Laura" stuff, they made a good attempt with "many items Laura and her family would have reognized and recalls the era in which she lived."  The book, "Little House in the Big Woods" is a charming look at where she was born.  There are a total of 9 books in the Little House series.

We camped at another beautiful COE spot along the Mississippi near De Soto, WI called Blackhawk Park.  This is in an area of Wisconsin within the Driftless area along the upper Mississippi River.  The Driftless Area was not covered by glaciers during the last ice age and consequesntly has different geology.  There are high limestone bluffs, deep river valleys and sand plains.

sunset on the Mississippi from our campsite

Davenport was heaviy affected by the flooding earlier in the spring/summer

farm that was flooded when a river levee broke

a small church that was completely destroyed

Chester, Illinois, home of E. C Segar who wrote the Popeye cartoon comic

There are about 15 statues throughout the town

The Home of Popeye

We have been criss-crossing the Mississippi River several times to visit something in each state.  On the Missouri side we went to Hannibal, the birthplace of Samuel Clements-Mark Twain.  Many of the buildings, settings and even his friends became inspiration for Mark Twain's stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckeberry Finn.

the actual fence in front of Mark Twain's home

Becky Thatcher was based on Laura Hawkins a friend of Samuel Clemens who really lived across the street

Before we left the upper Mississippi River, we hit some strong thunder storms.  So what do we do when it rains?

 .....pull over in the rain and give the Airstream a bath.

Shiny-at least for a while