Roaming Wisconsin

Since departing Winterset Iowa on the 9th of May, we spent a few mellow (and hot) days in the small town of Kieler WI, just across the Mississippi River from Dubuque IA. We were surprised by the 90+ degree days, and our small trailer AC unit had a hard time keeping up during the short heat wave, but the view across the rolling Wisconsin farm country from our campground was worth it. We also went into Dubuque to visit the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium. We really enjoyed the museum exhibits, and the fish and various animals in the aquarium were very active and fun to watch. What I didn’t expect to see were Pelicans roosting on the northern Mississippi River. I’ve never seen a Pelican away from the salty ocean, but there were several of them in the river near Dubuque, sitting on a log.

Just north of our campground was the Dickeyville Grotto. This was an amazing place in a very small town, highlighting years of effort collecting and building the Grotto from thousands of various rocks, geodes, crystals, and other assorted items (more photos here).

We moved on from Kieler across the state to just north of Racine to a campground next to Lake Michigan to visit my sister. The first day we went up to Milwaukee to the art museum on the shore front. The architecture of the building itself was really impressive, and the exhibits were even better than those in the Crystal Bridges Art Museum we visited in Bentonville back in April. Here’s an aerial view of the Milwaukee art museum with the “wings” open, and this is a time-lapse movie of the opening in progress. We had a great dinner that evening with my sister and two of her good friends.

We left Racine and travelled back across Wisconsin to the small town of West Salem, located just east of Lacrosse WI. Here we visited the Shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe, wandered the small town of Lacrosse, and found a car wash big enough for Ruby to fit through, getting rid of dust and dirt from several states of travel.

Tomorrow we are off to the plains of southern Minnesota. Time is really just flying by, and it’s hard to believe that we are rapidly nearing our Canadian border crossing.