We discovered that travelling on a Sunday in Iowa meant a lot of driving. We found a Welcome Centre when we crossed the border from Illinois into Iowa so had our maps and lots of info on the sights available but the woman who helped us said that we would not find many of the tourist points of interest open. She was right and certainly there was nothing available until after 12 noon. It was disappointing but we decided that we would carry on with our plan to go west in Iowa and then North to Minnesota before going west again.
We did find another State Park in Waterloo in the Cedar Valley along the Cedar River—again lots of well groomed trails this time in a wooded area along the river. The interesting thing about this park was the shrill noise in the woods. It was the cicadas making all the racket. In some areas it was almost deafening. We did find one of the tourist areas open—the Little Brown church in the vale. It happens that the first Sunday in August is wedding reunion weekend and certainly from what we saw there have been a lot of people married at the little brown church—one of the couples said that they had celebrated their 72nd anniversary. William Pitts, a music teacher wrote the words and music to “The Church in the Wildwood” and it was sung for the first time at the dedication of the church in 1864. We found a wonderful place for lunch (another full parking lot). It was Sunday buffet at the Backdoor in Charles City. There was plenty of food and all of it made on site or at home and brought in—the waitress told us she was up at 6:30 in the morning icing her chocolate cake with butterscotch and coconut icing—it was yummy. We needed another walk after all that food and Ron discovered a beautiful little garden with sculptures of children playing—baseball, skipping, climbing and playing on a see saw. It was so sweet. We did find a museum open in a small town in Mitchell county, in the town of Osage. They had a large collection of vintage clothing, American Indian artifacts, covered wagon, newspaper collection, civil war artifacts, medical equipment and instruments. It reminded us of the museum we had visited in Morse Saskatchewan where the community was very involved and had donated their time and treasures.
We were in Minnesota early in the afternoon so decided to continue further west—it was a good driving day weather-wise so we added a few more miles and hopefully will have a slower drive tomorrow. We are in the southwest corner of Minnesota at a small town called Luverne—it too is very quiet on a Sunday.At this point we are now the Canadian equivalent of being out of Ontario and into Manitoba.
We did find another State Park in Waterloo in the Cedar Valley along the Cedar River—again lots of well groomed trails this time in a wooded area along the river. The interesting thing about this park was the shrill noise in the woods. It was the cicadas making all the racket. In some areas it was almost deafening. We did find one of the tourist areas open—the Little Brown church in the vale. It happens that the first Sunday in August is wedding reunion weekend and certainly from what we saw there have been a lot of people married at the little brown church—one of the couples said that they had celebrated their 72nd anniversary. William Pitts, a music teacher wrote the words and music to “The Church in the Wildwood” and it was sung for the first time at the dedication of the church in 1864. We found a wonderful place for lunch (another full parking lot). It was Sunday buffet at the Backdoor in Charles City. There was plenty of food and all of it made on site or at home and brought in—the waitress told us she was up at 6:30 in the morning icing her chocolate cake with butterscotch and coconut icing—it was yummy. We needed another walk after all that food and Ron discovered a beautiful little garden with sculptures of children playing—baseball, skipping, climbing and playing on a see saw. It was so sweet. We did find a museum open in a small town in Mitchell county, in the town of Osage. They had a large collection of vintage clothing, American Indian artifacts, covered wagon, newspaper collection, civil war artifacts, medical equipment and instruments. It reminded us of the museum we had visited in Morse Saskatchewan where the community was very involved and had donated their time and treasures.
We were in Minnesota early in the afternoon so decided to continue further west—it was a good driving day weather-wise so we added a few more miles and hopefully will have a slower drive tomorrow. We are in the southwest corner of Minnesota at a small town called Luverne—it too is very quiet on a Sunday.At this point we are now the Canadian equivalent of being out of Ontario and into Manitoba.
We found there were a lot of motorcycles on the highway today and noted that the state laws must all be different as many were not wearing helmets here in Minnesota. Ron spoke to some of them this evening as they are staying at the same motel and it turns out that they are all heading for Sturgis South Dakota for a huge rally that attracts motorcyclists from all over North America. It begins tomorrow and lasts for a week, so we will get a chance to visit Sturgis before we leave South Dakota.
No comments:
Post a Comment