Kary and Mary's house near Milan MO

We finally made it to Kary and Mary's house near the town of Milan, MO. They have a farm in the northeast part of Missouri. We knew them when we lived in Kansas City back in the mid to late 1970's. They visited us out in colorado a few years after we had moved but we had not made it back to Missouri to visit them in all the years we had been gone.

They were nice to put us up on the farm and we had a great campsite about 1/4 mi from their house up on a hill. Since the remnants Hurricane Hanna had just gone thru the area the road was muddy so we had to use 4 wheel drive to get up to the site but managed to get set up. It was a great site we even had electric and water hookups. We had a great time visiting with Kary and Mary and got to meet their kids that were away in college in St Joseph, MO as we took a trip over to pick up their daughter and drop off some clothes for their son. We stayed an extra day and Kary and Mary took us out on friday evening to look for all the deer that they have on their land. I think we saw at least 30 deer and they got a look at what they will be hunting when the season starts this year.

Everything was green and the grass was still tall and they told us that there had been about double the amount of rain that they usually get in a year. We had a great time but decided to move on toward Branson on Saturday. We headed for Harry Truman lake in SW Missouri and set up camp in the corp of engineer campground near Warsaw MO. We got there on saturday afternoon and found out that there was a Air Force base nearby and they were having weekend practice. Two Warthog jets kept flying low over the campground and they were loud. Lucky for us they quit by 7pm and it was nice and quiet.

We spent a couple nites there and that gave us a chance to do laundry in town. Seems like we dont take time to do the chores till we have to do them. After spending a nice quiet time at Harry Truman lake we headed down to Branson.

Heading west

After leaving Mississippi Palisades state park we headed to Missouri via the southeast corner of Iowa. After looking at the map we decided to stay at a state park just inside the Missouri border called Battle of Athens state park. It was the site of a battle during the Civil war in 1861 and the town has been saved as a historic site and they had a real nice little campground just outside the town. We just stayed the nite as we were on the way to our friends house near Milan, MO. We were the only ones in the campground other than the wild turkeys that were all over the place and a lot of loud insects. This is a big year for cicadas and there were also lots of lightning bugs in the area.

Mississippi Palisades State Park Illinois

We made it to Mississippi Palisades state Park just north of Savanna, IL for Labor Day weekend. This state park did not take reservations so we could get a site. It was a very nice campground, really green with a lot of hardwood trees and bushes. It was just off the Mississippi river about 1/4 mile but did not have a view of the river. Savanna was a nice little town of about 3,000 people with a lot of old buildings downtown. After settling into camp we went into town to check out things and found out that over labor day weekend they were having a big motorcycle rally in town and were expecting 3000 to 5000 bikers. Savanna is trying to turn itself into another Sturgis and they have been having rallies here for several years.

Turns out that Milwaukee was having a 105th Harley Davidson anniversary the same weekend so we dont think very many bikers turned up in Savanna. We went on a bike ride on the Mississippi River Great River Trail down to the next town and they were having a watermelon festival. seems like that must have been the weekend for all types of activities in this area. We bought some local produce, corn, cantelope and watermelon. It sure is sweet when you get it fresh like that.
I dont remember how many ears of corn we have had on this trip so far, but it has to be close to 2 dozen. The cantelope was very sweet also, we have been buying so much of that we are getting burned out on cantelope.

Illinois had a new fee schedule for their state parks this year, they raised their fee for camping by 5.00 a day, then for holiday weekends they also tacked on another fee of 10.00 per day. But according to local authorities holiday weekends are 4 days long as they charge you 10.00 a day for 4 days instead of the 3 for that labor day weekend.
Leave it to the government to come up with that one. I send an email to the state of Illinois letting them know how I felt about their "extra" fee for the weekend and how they added a day to it also. They wrote back saying thanks for your comments!!
The people at the gate told us that they were getting a lot of complaints on the fee increase for holiday weekends. The campground did not fill up for Labor Day, usually it is full but this year it was probably down 10 to 15% in the amount of campers in the park. Gas prices probably caused some of it also.

On to Green Bay

After leaving Wabeno area we headed to Green Bay, home of the Packers football team. Seems like our grandson, Riley, likes the packers for some reason.
We took a couple photos of the stadium for him and then went and visited Farmer Brothers manager, Dan Golie. I had meet him one time at a computer class in Torrance, CA. He said things are going well and he is keeping busy.
We left Green Bay and headed south to see if we could find a campground for Labor Day weekend.
On the way to Illinois we stopped at a county campground in Beaver Dam Wisconsin. It was a real nice campground called Dredge campground and if you ever go thru that area in your RV be sure and stop. The sunset photo is from this campground. I probably took 30 shots of it while it was displaying its brilliance!!

After looking around town for information about Barb's grandparents we decided to find the cemetary and see what we could find out there. We drove all over looking for it but could not find it so we took a drive out in the country to see the sites. Then while heading back into town we found 3 cemetaries, one catholic, one lutheran and one city cemetary.
we wandered around the Lutheran cemetary and found the grave stones for her grandparents, great uncles, aunt and uncle and several other ones. We also ran into some folks looking around the cemetary and found out that he had worked with Barb's aunt at the bank in town back in the 1950's. His name was Bernie and he ended up being the president of the bank in Wabeno before he retired. Small world!!
The next night we went to a concert in the park in town and ran into Bernie and his wife again and Barb talked with Bernie some more and found out where the Rusch store had been. It had a fire in 1955 and burned most of it down. the only thing remaining now was the back of the store, which is now just storage from the looks of it.

Wabeno WI part 2

The logging museum in Wabeno was very interesting to visit. They had it stocked with a lot of items from the logging days in the late 1800's. There were a lot of pictures of the people from that era doing the logging and it sure looked like a lot of hard work. No wonder people did not live as long back then. But they were all thin!!





We found out that Adolph Rusch, Barbs grandfather had a house on a certain street and his brothers also lived on the same street. We drove by the area and the houses are still standing and one has been turned into a funeral home. Most of the homes from that time period are still in good condition so they have been kept up. We think the funeral home was probably Adolphs home but we didnt not stop to find out.

The steam engine in the photo was used back in that era to pull the logs out of the woods to the lumber mills. Since most of the trees back in that time were hardwoods they could not float them in the rivers as they did not float well. This steam engine is still workable and they transport it around the US to several events each year.

The photo of the pile of logs is being pulled by the steam engine and there was one photo in the museum of it pulling several stacks of these logs thru the woods.

As you may notice in one of the photos they finally caught up with Barb and she was put in the Wabeno Jail. One of the photos also shows the statue they have at the museum of a logger. Another photo of the AE Rusch company coupon, I think they used this instead of money as they had several of the coupons with different dollar values on them.

Wabeno WI

We made it to Wabeno late in the afternoon and set up camp in the national forest campground about 4 miles from town on Richardson Lake. The trees in this area are really thick and almost all hardwoods.

We went into town to check it out real quick and drove around to see the sights.

They have a nice museum and several older buildings along the main hiway and lots of older homes. One of the homes is very large and is now a bed and breakfast Inn. It used to be owned back in the early 1900's by one of the lumber barons in this area.

Barb's Grandfather on her mother's side was a lumber baron here in 1898 into the early 1900's. She never met him as he had passed away before Barb was born.

The next day we went to the museum and found out all kinds of information and even found photos of Barb's grandfather, grandmother, 2 uncles and an aunt.

While in the logging business her grandfather opened a store in town so his employees would have a place to get the items they needed for day to day living. This store stayed in business until a fire in 1955 destroyed most of the building. The photo with the 3 men is Adolph Rusch and his 2 brothers, Barbs grandfather and great uncles. The photo of the building is the store that they owned. These photos are from the museum in town. It was very interesting to visit and we spent at least an hour there and had a nice conversation with the gentleman that was managing the museum at the time. He was born in Wabeno and had moved away and moved back when he retired. I will have more on Wabeno in the next post.

Heading for Wabeno

Well we finished our bike ride on the Sparta\Elroy trail just before the rain hit as it started up just as we were loading the bikes in the truck. We headed back to camp and enjoyed our last nite in camp and had a really nice sunset. The sunsets here are just great almost every nite. We enjoyed our time here in La Crosse, especially with Dennie and Dee coming up from Colorado Springs and running around the area with us. A good time was had by all!!

Sparta/Elroy Trail

This area is called the Sparta to Elroy trail and it was the first former railroad bed converted to a trail back in the 1960's. This trail is almost 50 miles long if you rode the entire length and then it is connected to the La Crosse river trail which in turn is connected to the Mississippi River trail which ends up being over 100 miles long.

The Sparta trail has 3 tunnels along the trail, with the longest being 3/4 mile long and the other 2 trails are both 1680 feet long, just over 1/4 mile. We rode thru the 2 short tunnels, we actually walked the bikes as it is too dark to ride thru them and they are slick from the moisture. The trails go thru the local countryside and you can actually

stop in each little town along the route. We had lunch in Wilton which is considered the heart of the trail.

After finishing the ride we went to the local antique/flea market in Norwalk and I found a couple of Green Bay Packer items which I picked up for my Granson, Riley, who happens to be a big Green Bay fan(we dont know what happened there, I guess he just never was able to watch the Denver Broncos play)!!!

If you will notice one of the photos is a dog in the window. I could not resist taking that shot, he was laying the window of the local hardware store and I am sure he is the supervisor of the store as the other 2 people in the store were working!! ha ha!!

La Crosse Cruise Nite

We found out that one night each week this local drive inn had a cruise nite with older cars. The drive inn has been around since the 50,s and all the girls serve you while riding around on their roller skates. It was a lot of fun and a local radio station was broadcasting live from the corner of the parking lot. Someone even brought an old city bus that they must be restoring. There were a lot of very good cars in the lot and almost all of them were in perfect showroom condition.
We also enjoyed some rootbeer floats that they are famous for!! If you ever get to La Crosse be sure and take in Rudy's drive In!!

More of La Crosse

Here we are on a bike ride with Dennie and Dee on the Mississippi River trail.

The trail runs for several miles north out of La Crosse, some of it along the river.

All of the trails in this area connect to each other and end up being a total of 103 miles long if you took it all the way from the top to the bottom. We rode bikes for 2 different days along 2 trails and had a great time.

The statue is one of 35 in the La Crosse area that were all done by local artists for a fund raiser. The statues are cranes that have all been painted with different themes and are dedicated to someone and the funds raised will go to charity. They were all unique and we saw many of the 35, some of them in real out of the way places.

LaCrosse WI

Here some images of the riverboat and cruise. We went upriver to this railroad bridge that had to be opened in order for us to pass thru. They have an attendent that opens the bridge as needed for river traffic. Also along the way we saw many turtles sunning themselves on the logs.
The river above this area has locks on it to move the river traffic, which in this area it has a lot of barges moving items up and downriver. There are also a lot of houseboats along this area of the river and people use them for vacations or just weekends.
LaCrosse is home to Skipperliner boat building and they make many houseboats and they also built the riverboat that we were on for the cruise.

On to Wisconsin

After spending several days in the Root River Valley we headed to La Crosse, WI to meet up with Dennie and Dee from Colorado Springs. We arrived there on friday and set up camp then went in to do our laundry and see the town.
La Crosse is a city of about 52,000 but it felt larger than that as it is spread out north and south along the Mississippi river but only about 4 to 5 miles wide due to the river valley.

It is a very pretty city with many older buildings downtown and the downtown area seemed to be a busy and active place with a lot of various types of business's.
We went to the Riverwalk area as they were having sand sculpture contests and here are a few of the sculptures, they turned out real nice. Each team was working hard trying to finish their project before the 4pm deadline for judging. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs!!

They also have a couple of riverboats here that cruise the Mississippi, one just does cruises for a couple of hours but the other one has dinner cruises with entertainment. Since we were there during the day we opted to take the river cruise and it was very interesting. I will list more about it in the next post.

After we left Spirit Lake area of Iowa we headed north into Minnesota. It was a short drive as Minnesota was up the road from our campsite about 3 miles at the most. We drove west on the interstate in southern MN to a small town of 269 people called Peterson. They have a small city campground that is very nice and we were the only ones in the campground for about 3 days. They have full hookups at the campground and there is 10 sites total. We had intended on driving across the northen part of Iowa on the back roads but we had so many bad roads across the eastern part we decided to stick to the interstate across southern MN. We lost the bike seat and stem off of Barbs bike heading into Spirit Lake due to the rough roads and had a tough time finding a replacement so we decided to play it safe.
The bike trail that runs along the Root River in southern MN was right behind our camper in Peterson so it was easy to get on and off the bike trail.
On the first day we road our bikes to the city of Rushford going west from Peterson. It is a nice town and we ran around town on the bikes and we started noticing a lot of construction around the town on the houses. Then we noticed that a lot of the houses also had paint markings on them near the front doors with dates and times marked on the siding. We road back over to the museum and found out that the previous august they had a flood in town that had flooded every single business in town along with all the houses in one certain area. The creek that ran on the NE side of town had ran over the dikes that had been put there back in the 1960's and flooded the low end of the city. The city had really done a good job of cleaning up tho, as you could not see water marks on hardly anything in the downtown area.
Everyone was working hard on rebuilding everything they could and it looked like they were doing a great job of it. We headed back to Peterson and road our bikes around the small town to look at the sites and finished our day with about 14 or 15 miles of total riding. The countryside in this area was very nice, mostly wooded with lots of hardwoods.

The small towns in this area are very interesting to visit, with small museums that give you a history of the area and towns. Peterson MN looks like a retirement community as there is not much there for jobs, no gas station, grocery store or even a convenience store. You need to go to one of the other towns nearby for all the necessary items.

We really enjoyed our quiet little campground that we had all to ourselves for 3 nites.