The Gang of Five Meet and cross Minnesota

On Monday morning I had cereal and coffee at the Super 8 - just enough to get me down the road to a real breakfast. It was very gray and overcast, but dry, so I decided to go with my riding jeans. After I showered and packed and went outside I discovered that it was sunny, but it had rained, so I went back inside and changed to lighter pants and my waterproof overpants. Riding north through town on Highway 67, I didn't see any better motels than the one at which I'd stayed - perhaps there were more on the west side of town. Highway 67 soon connected US 52, which follows the river all the way to Dubuque before it angles northwest away from the Mississippi. I believe  that 52 is one of the rare US Highways that doesn't go east-west or north-south - it starts in the Carolinas someplace and goes northwest into Minnesota -  I'll have to check that out and maybe ride its length someday.

The road along the Mississippi was very pleasant with good views, gentle hills and curves, and little traffic. There was about 20 minutes of light rain, which made me feel good about wearing my overpants, then the sky cleared, the sun came out, and it began to warm up. I found a nice restaurant in Bellevue, Iowa, and stopped for breakfast and to change into my jeans and stow my rain gear.

View  of the Mississippi across the road from Richman's Cafe

Richman's Cafe in Bellevue, Iowa on US 52

One of the patron's in Richman's was a uniformed conservation officer who informed me that there was a detour for US 52  just  up the road, and that instead of following the official detour, I could turn on to Bellevue Cascades road, which would take me to Dubuque and also by Spanish Mines, an interesting site. I followed the advice, and the road was indeed a good one, but it was also slow and took me way out of my way, so that I ended up entering Dubuque from the west rather than the south., and I never did find Spanish Mines. Unfortunately, all the new development in that city appears to be on the west side of town, so there was a lot of truck traffic, housing developments, every big-box store you can name, and mall after mall. I'd wanted to visit Eagle Point, a park on the river in downtown Dubuque that Geo had told me about, but I finally bailed out and bypassed the city. By this time I was running a bit late for our meeting in Prairie du Chien, so I hurried along through towns such as Luxemburg and Guttenberg - many Germans settled the area. My anxiety wasn't helped by the fact that I was running low on gas - many of the small towns I rode through might have five churches but no gas station. I finally found premium in Guttenberg and hurried on to Marquette and crossed the river to Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin. I found Simply Coffee & Eatery and sat down with coffee and a scone to await the rest of the crew.

Victor in front of Simply Coffee & Eatery

In the morning the local weather news on TV had reported severe storms in Chicago and areas to the  north, so I was worried about Geo, Rich, and Spitz, who were driving from eastern Wisconsin, and Dan, who was riding from Evanston, Illinois, north of Chicago.

The Wisconsin group arrived about 15 minutes after I did, and Dan arrived in another half hour (having waited out a storm in Evanston), and we all ordered food and began our planning for the trip. We spent way too long at the cafe, but finally set out and went across  the river and turned north on a series of small, numbered  roads with the same name - The Great River Road, which continued into  Minnesota. It was slow but scenic, with a railroad track to the east of  the road and about 50-100 yards beyond that to the river. We all noticed that in many places people had small houses or house trailers close to the banks, and that they were all on stilts - wood, concrete, even barrels. That  made sense - if the river flooded, the house would be above the water. However, what was strange is that the heights of the stilts were different, as if each builder was working with different data on how high the river would get.

The sky clouded up and darkened, and we soon ran into a very wet  road - we must have missed a thunderstorm by minutes. We came upon a pickup  truck on its side in a ditch, probably having skidded on the wet road. Everyone appeared to be OK and they were waving people on, so we continued on the river road, eventually joining US 14, which we followed west into Rochester where Rich had made reservations at a Fairview Inn - a very nice place with an exercise room, fancy lobby, and other amenities, none of which we utilized since we were all tired and ready for bed.