La Crosse to Spring Lake Inn, Wisconsin. Friday, June 25, 2021
Today started with a bit of nostalgia: we ate breakfast at Fayze’s. This was the one place we had stopped in Wisconsin in our cross country trip in 2005, and for some reason I remembered the name. I saw why—breakfast was really good, and there was lots of Wisconsin memorabilia on the walls.
I’d been wrestling with my plans for the next week. The highpoint of Illinois, Charles Mound, would not be open until July 3, and it was only 150 miles away. How to fill the time? Over breakfast, I picked the brains of my buds, all Wisconsin veterans, and alums of the U in Madison. Madison seemed the place to be, they had lots of suggestions of things to see.
En route, I noticed, was Spring Green, home of Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate Taliesin. I decided to dodge the hills of the Driftless Region by heading down the Mississippi and up the Wisconsin, which would also give me a chance to see Pikes Peak. Huh? Isn’t that in Colorado? Stay tuned.
Figuring all this out took time, of course, and I didn’t get rolling till 2 PM. Had to stop by the post office to send a box home, I gotten a newer air mattress. Balancing the box on my handlebars while going down the steep hill from Darren’s place was comical.
Bad thunderstorms were predicted by nightfall, so I wanted to get as far as I could. Aided in the beginning by a gentle tailwind, it was delightful to cruise down the flat terrain on the banks of the Mississippi, sometimes the road got so close if felt I was floating down the river itself. The high bluffs on my left, the river on my right, I was so ebullient I couldn’t resist belting out Old Man River at the top of my lungs. Good thing the cars had the windows rolled up on this hot day.
Sorry again for no pictures. The landscape was just too broad to be captured well. The river was a couple of miles wide in places, enhanced by dams downstream, and filled with many islands and mudflats. Barges were totin’ their bales through the channels. It was hard to know how wide it would’ve been if left untouched. We weren’t really that far down from the source, and it seemed wider than I remembered in New Orleans.
It was all too perfect to last. At Ferryville the wind shifted and I could see the storms ahead, arriving early. Shoot. I’d hoped to make the confluence with the Wisconsin at Prairie de Chien, 25 miles ahead. Better find something closer, but it was Friday night. Everything was booked. Helpful motel keepers would recommend other places, but those wouldn’t answer their phone. Finally I got through to the Spring Lake Inn, 18 miles away, and the idyllic cruise became a grim race through headwinds, intermittent rain, and crummy shoulders. Made it just in time before the storm hit.
The Spring Lake Inn was a noisy tavern with a few rooms attached, the one they gave me wasn’t made up, the next one had no towels or soap; there was a lot of back-and-forth in the storm, and I rushed to get in a shower before they stopped serving. It was all good, they had a cod special that was out of this world. No WiFi, and minimal cell service, that’s why this post is late. Flash floods were predicted overnight, I was gratified to see we were a little bit up from the river.
Distance 55 miles, 3,130 total. Time 7 hours with stops. Elevation gain 819 feet.
©️ 2021 Scott Luria
The Ends of the Earth 