Rain on the Mississippi - LaCrosse, Wisconsin

Today's plan was to go do some sightseeing in LaCrosse around the historic downtown, and then stop back by the mall on the way home. We saw an ad for some sheets on sale and wanted to check them out. Since we moved into the Castle, we haven't had a back-up set of sheets.


At 3:00 this morning, we had a wild thunderstorm move through, with a lot of rain. But that passed and we went right back to sleep. When we got up around 7:00 it was gray and damp, but not raining. The weather man on tv assured us the rain was on it's way out, although there might be a few more showers in the morning. We set out on our adventure.


Amarillo has it's painted horses, Custer has it's painted Buffalo. LaCrosse has painted Herons. We saw several and got pictures of 3. Later, after we got home, I was able to find a little information about them. They are a public art and fund raising project. People can vote for their favorite Herons for $1.00 per vote.

This is my favorite. There are scenes from around LaCrosse painted on it.

It was gray, but not raining when we took these pictures of the river:

We decided to take a drive to the south, on a road that indicated it would take us close enough to the river to have some good views. Of course, as we proceeded south, the rain started falling for real. We found a county park called Goose Island, so we had to explore that. On a clear, sunny day, I think it would be beautiful.

We went on a few more miles and got to watch the rain falling on the Mississippi River for quite a while before we turned around and headed to the mall.

We ran into the mall in the rain and stayed there long enough that the rain quit. We did get the sheets. We also found a 2009 trucker's atlas. We get a little nervous not knowing whether we're going to get into a situation where we'll come to a low underpass on some road and not be able to get through. This atlas shows all the truck-approved routes, with low underpasses identified for each state.

We had lunch at the Olive Garden before heading home. We'd been back for maybe an hour when I noticed the clouds were disappearing and the sun was trying to shine. We grabbed the cameras to get some pictures of Lake Neshonoc.

This is one of the boat docks for the campground:


Looking back towards an area of summer homes:


Tomorrow is another travel day, to Brussels, Wisconsin, a little town on Green Bay. Somehow I never realized that Green Bay is a real bay, not just a town where the Packers play! We'll be there for 3 nights.