The whole time we were there, I kept saying "I've got to take a picture of this site, and never did. They had the trailers backed in on an angle so our front door opened out on the lawn then the river. The park was clearly within a danger zone for flooding. When we looked at the seasonal trailers they were set up for immediate evacuation, Even the electric boxes were 6-8' above ground on some sites, with ladders next to them! The first night the sunset over the river was beautiful. I shot this while we were sitting at our site.
The next day we went on the paddlewheel boat on a trip up the river. This boat has two paddle wheels for propulsion run hydraulically. I shot the picture for Erin.
As we went up the river, there was the usual number of beautiful waterfront houses, with their unique characteristics to accommodate the periodic flooding. The other difference between this tour and the others we've been on, were the boats. They had the normal number of run abouts and water skiers, but they also had houseboats, and barges called "tows". A typical tow has 12-15 barges pushed by a huge tugboat. If 
this picture does not meet your expectation of barges being towed, it is because many years ago as the number of barges, and the total lengths got longer and longer, towing barges became impossible. The barges at the end would not stay in line, so they 
reversed the order and began pushing them. The towboats are huge powerful machines, and the barges have grown to over 1000' in length. The cruise went up to lock and dam # 7 and we watched a tow pass thru on our trip. We made a note to go back and see it 
close up. I went downstairs and noticed that they had a window looking out through the back of the boat and through the paddle wheel. It was interesting, but difficult to get a picture.I need to use a few words to describe the geology of this area. This
is known as the driftless area. It was never covered by any glacier, but they had a tremendous influence on the terrain. When the glaciers up north melted they released massive quantities of melt water. This carved out the Mississippi river valley. You've seen it in the background in all the previous pictures if you've enlarged them. The river is 
about 600' below the level of the surrounding farms. Because this created some very interesting geologic features they have several fair size drives around the area. So we went on a couple of modified tours. The first took us to Grandad Bluff overlooking La Crosse. This is a spot 600' above the river. In the picture right, you can see Iowa off to your left, Minnesota to your right, and Wisconsin at 
your feet. In the picture left, you will see the bridge over the Mississippi on your left, the city of La Crosse actually blocks the river, our campground is on the island, then the west branch and the western bluffs. The view was great. We found the land on top to be very much typical farmland. As you travel back towards La Crosse it seemed like we were going to fall of the cliff when we got close to the river. We both commneted on the differences in terrain , and the feel of the communities between the riverfront towns,and the farms above. Even the farms in the broad valley felt different, smaller.
We did head up to Lock # 7, and actually went downriver to lock # 8 as well. There was a tow just entering as we got there. If you're not interested in the details, skip down a little. We ask lots of questions of the guys who are working, and find most people are
delighted to describe what they do for a living - with pride! Tows are well over 1000' and the locks are 650' lond necessitating the driver to head his load in, break it apart, then back half of it out. In the photo left, he is just backing out after leaving half. You can see the gates closing. They then close the gates raise the level 6-10' the go through the whole process again.
We usually arn't bashful about asking people about what they're doing and usually find people are delighted to tell of their jobs. These guys were no exception. The guy in the white t-shirt is a lock worker,and the guys in the blue are on the barge, a crew from the deep south by their accents. They said they usually have 10 workers but on this trip they only had 8. This seemed like a pretty good staff until they went to work "locking thru". This involved guiding 13 barges in to a lock with 1-2' of clearance on a side. Once the first 650' of barges got into the lock and it was filled they had to be winched out. I asked the guy who was on the end o fthe last barge how they stopped them. He said he stopped them with just the rope he had in his hands. He allowed that sometimes it was kind of exciting. A crew typically works three weeks on and three weeks off.
This tow is heading up river, with mostly empty barges, and a few filled with something the workers described as slag. It's the rock like stuff in the open barge just behind the dome tops in the center. When they're empty they draw a few feet , when full they draw 9'. These barges typically fill with grain in Duluth MN, or Winona MN a few miles up river.
We dedcided to take another of hte recommended trips down beyond lock 8 into Iowa. La Crosse has a sign on some tanks next to our bridge, that say "Wisconsin's West Coast" Well Liz and I have never thought of Iowa
as being anything but landlocked, but we found that they have an "East Coast". This part of Iowa is anything but flat and cornfields. As we started back up the other side of the river, we noticed some nice scenic overlooks and decided to stop at one. We knew that the river traffic was tremendously encouraged at the first dredging of a shipping channel through this section of this flat plain and islands. We also had learned that erosion still is a major problem here. What you see in the photo right is an island creation project going on out 
in the Mississippi. The Corps of engineers are digging out channels for navigation, and restoring the mud back to create islands for 
plant and wildlife habitats. This area has become a bird sanctuary, for the spring and the fall fly-overs. In the picture left you can see some of the Wisconsin bluffs and the farms on top of them. Look at a larger image just over the dredging barge for the silos 600' above the river.On the way out of La Crosse we stopped at an outlet for The Company Store, the place Liz bought the down comforter for our bed about 20 years ago. We bought another one. This plus some outlet shopping at Land's End in Oshkosh is all we've done on this trip. August 5th was our 32nd anniversary, so we celebrated by going out to dinner. On to Madison tomorrow we think.
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