The Great River Road

At this point we became so busy seeing and doing that we didn’t have time to keep up the blog. The Great River Road National Scenic Byway follows the Mississippi river for 3,000 miles through ten states, but we elected to join at Prairie Du Chien where we stayed for a few days. This picture was taken atop the bluff at Wyalusing State Park at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers. We would see several such parks along the Mississippi that are built atop bluffs along the river.

     

     

As you may judge from the name, Prairie Du Chien originated as a French community. We learned that the French grew wheat here and shipped it up river and out the St. Lawrence seaway to France until a railroad was built to Milwaukee, thus creating a shorter route through Lake Michigan. In this photo you see the grand passenger station of that era

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Heading upriver, we enjoyed seeing the Corp of Engineer locks. Here a fuel barge enters lock #8. Our next stay was at Perrot State Park near Trempealeau. The big draw of this park in addition to its natural beauty on the Mississippi river was the fact that the Great River State Trail runs through it. Though the trail was not paved it was very hard making for a good ride.

     

     

One day we rode the trail in to Trempealeau and had lunch at Mrs.Sippi’s café. After all, we’re on the Mississippi river.

     

                                       

          

          

While at Perrot S.P. we drove back to La Crosse to visit a high overlook over the city. We visited Riverside International Friendship Gardens and the Riverside Museum which had a lot of river related exhibits. Finally we rode a trail north of town as well as the La Crosse river walk.

        

        

           

Heading north from Perrot State Park we stopped in Winona, MN on the west side of the Mississippi. We parked alongside a large lake and biked around the lake. We also biked towards town to the Amtrak station. George had already been enjoying seeing the railroads on both sides of the river with CSX on the east side and Canadian Pacific on the west side. The Amtrak route from Chicago to Seattle runs on the Canadian Pacific. At the Amtrak station we saw a painting of a famed Milwaukee Road steam train passing through Winona. We also spoke with a friendly Amtrak agent who told us one of the rare domed-end passenger cars of the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha passenger trains was now in private hands and parked at the St. Paul Amtrak station. We put that on our to do list for the Minneapolis area.

       

       

Up river in Wabasha WI we stayed at a motel/RV park. It was quite nice and we were in biking distance of town where we visited the National Eagle Center. This whole area of the Mississippi river is a natural habitat for the Bald Eagle. The center rescues injured eagles and houses them. We heard an interesting presentation about the work of the center given by one of the volunteers.  We later crossed the Mississippi into Wisconsin and drove south, stopping at another lock with the railroad running beside it.