It would not be a normal 3 day weekend around this house unless we took a journey somewhere!
Ang remembered me clamoring about Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa a while back… And suggested that we go this weekend. Well, what she didn’t know… Effigy Mounds is north of Dubuque by about 60 miles. Using the Great River Road along the Mississippi river… That rung up to a pretty long drive! 5 hours to be exact!
After getting to the quad cities…. And making our way north… We were fortunate enough to see a sign for Maquoketa Caves State Park. I had read that Iowa had some cave parks. So, this seemed like a nice detour.
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| From May 2010 |
The park office guy said the caves were closed due to some kind of bat disease… But that the risk of running into bats this time of year was low. They had moved out to the trees. We are natural law breakers… So, we walked through 3 caves. Pretty cool… Pretty muddy and wet! It was worth it… The kids were excited and loving every minute of it!
We got done and ate our packed lunch in the picnic area.
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| Spelunking, from May 2010 |
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| From May 2010 |
Next up… More driving… It is a very stunning view on the River road. You are basically running the crest of hills along the countryside. Very nice. We enjoyed the views. Not a lot of river though. It was basically hills.
Couple of side notes:
That area seems VERY religious! Lots of pro-life signage on the highway. It was only worth noting because of its prevalence. Another thing that I noticed…. Church steeples. Wow! A mile high and 10 feet wide. Some very old and amazing looking steeple structures were in every town. Its also worth noting that if you were a mason in Dubuque… You should be very busy! So much brick… All that tuck pointing! Even the run down parts of the town had good looking mortar. (Isn’t it sad how I see these things?)
Effigy Mounds makes it pretty clear on their website that they are not the easiest park to get around and check out the site. They are on river bluffs… And we have to do some walking in order to see all the mounds. There are 2 parts of the park… The easier North side, and the rustic South side. We did both… Because we like to torture our children!
It was a 2 mile hike up and down hills for the North side… We saw clearly marked mound effigies in the shape of bears, lines and circles. We also had some amazing views of the Mississippi river. Unfortunately… You cannot take a decent picture of a mound from ground level. So, I have none of those to share. Just pictures of weeds growing in general areas.
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| Picture from the North side of Effigy Mounds park. From May 2010 |
The park ranger who showed us the map suggested that seeing the South side mounds was well worth the effort… See map below for park breakdown.
There was NOBODY to be seen on the Southern park area. That’s kinda crappy… But, maybe people see a few mounds and decide to go home.
We hiked the 2 miles uphill to the South Unit mounds. It was a LONG walk! My kids are troopers… But you could see them vaporizing! Aiden was probably minutes from telling me to “shove it”. But the promise of some candy in Ang’s purse seemed to be enough to get him to the end of the trail.
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| Long walk! From May 2010 |
It was all of 6 miles that we walked… I had the GPS on… But I don’t have it at the computer as I write this. I will upload the track later. EVERYONE was beat! We hiked back to the car and headed over to Wisconsin to a small brewery that looked interesting.
Petosi Brewing company.
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| Petosi Brewing Company, from May 2010 |
These guys have taken a dilapidated brewhouse and area… Used grants and private donations to build a modern brewpub and art center… With all the charm of the old architecture. I was more in love with the premise of this place than the actual beer!
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| From May 2010 |
Left Petosi and headed back over the river to Dubuque… Ran into the Dickeyville Grotto! I later learned that this place is on somekind of Wisconsin tourism program. It was an amazing collection of Catholic sculptures all handmade from shells, broken glass, geodes, rocks and whaever else must have been laying around. VERY COOL! It was worth the quick stop!
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| From May 2010 |
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| From May 2010 |
Galena did not a hotel open. That was our first choice.
As it turned out… Dubuque was booked as well! We nearly made a reservation back in the quad cities… But we got lucky… Ended up in Maquoketa at a Comfort Suites. (Same place we had gone to the caves at earlier in the day) A room opened up as I pulled in. 2 people came in behind me to ask for a room… And were all turned away! I was VERY thankful!
The next morning, we spent a few hours at the hotel pool coaching the kids on how to snorkel. I had brought their masks and snorkels along for this very reason. Aiden rocked it! Summer was a little slower… But soon got very good with it.
I am hoping that an hour getting familiar with the equipment here will save me time and energy when we go on vacation this summer. We shall see!
That was our Memorial Day weekend!