Fleeting Capture: Driftless

Sometimes the best is in plain sight, close but overlooked. Unseen, its existence taken for granted.

Such can be said for my most recent bicycle trip through the "driftless" region of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, from which I recently returned. It was high time to stay close to home and discover this undiscovered country.

The driftless region is basically an area that skirted the movement of glaciers during the last Ice Age, and thus not leveled off as the areas around this region. The meltwater carved the many river valleys in this area, leaving an undulating landscape of hills, plateau's and valleys all the way to the Mississippi River basin. In other words, lots of hills!! The blending of valley and hills, pastures and forests, rivers bisecting all, it is easy to see why this area was so attractive to European immigrants. It could visually match so many places in Switzerland, Germany and England, and so they all came to settle towns like Alma Center, Lancaster, and Mineral Point.

What the glaciers missed - the Driftless Region -
and the general route of our trip

Quite simply, avoiding the day-by-day, mile-by-mile narrative, this trip originated at home in North Oaks on July 26th, followed the Mississippi as far as Winona, crossed southwestern Minnesota to Rushford, swung back to the Mississippi at McGregor, Iowa, crossing into Wisconsin and circling through Prairie du Chien, Mineral Point, Dodgeville, Spring Green, Portage, Reedsburg, Wilton (Amish country) Sparta, Elroy, Trempealeau at the Mississippi again, Mondovi, Durand and finally Menominee to finish the trip on August 3rd. 640 miles over nine days, and only 30 minutes of rain the entire journey. So I will share only my most memorable moments.

I rushed to get going after our family visitors departed, leaving solo close to noon to catch up with my comrades in Pepin, 82 miles downriver. It was hot and I pushed quite hard, but have ridden this stretch of the Mississippi several times. Yet I was getting pretty gassed as it was also a bit hot. South of Stockholm, Wisconsin, there are several nice overlooks, and I just felt the need to stop and rest, even though it was after 6 PM.

Some buzzing in my ear awoke me - a bug of course - and quite startled, I jumped up thinking I had been asleep quite awhile and needed to get going. Only about 20 minutes had passed, and this short nap, I suppose a true power nap, was just enough to overcome my fatigue and power myself the last 10 miles to Pepin. I realize now that I was close to bonking - being overly fatigued.

My bike at rest, and me stretched out behind for the power nap.

My colleague Megan Seltz had grown up in Winona and instructed that I should stop for donuts. I have been to Winona many times - it is a fascinating town with excellent architecture, including a famous bank designed by Louis Sullivan associates Purcell and Elmslie (and a Montessori school designed by . . . me!). Started in 1924, Bloedow's Bakery is an institution, located in an old saloon since 1925, and still retaining the tin ceilings and old wooden bakery cases. While the building is old, the donuts are fresh - a perfect power pill to climb the bluff out of Winona, up a most scenic East Burns Valley Road to the rolling southern Minnesota prairie beyond.

Needs no caption!

During our only stretch in the rain - a very short storm wave on a rolling Minnesota prairie - I was riding ahead of my mates, when a farm dog suddenly appeared. This can be a terrifying moment for a bicyclist. This dog went flying at full speed across his yard, down into the road ditch, and so I thought had disappeared, but suddenly appeared at a full sprint alongside me - just running . . . and running . . . and running, keeping up with me on every stroke. I was not going to outrun this gal, so I stopped, expecting to be arrested by a nasty growl. Instead, this dog just wanted to be petted. So I obliged, but she would also not let me go.

Soon, Paul and Rich rode up, and her attentions were now spread among three of us, allowing me, then Paul to ride on, holding Rich's attention. Well, he could not shake her either as he pushed on. So he stopped at a farmhouse, knocked on the door, and was introduced to a farmer presumably of French descent raising ducks for foie gras, who thought he knew whose dog it was, allowing Rich to proceed. Meanwhile, Paul and I awaited Rich in Caledonia, a small, impeccable town with a Main Street in full restoration mode, and the only open business on this hot Sunday morning a coffee shop. We waited a pleasant hour, now in the sun, enjoying the pride of this town on display.

Paul finding shade in Caledonia

McGregor, Iowa is another example of the many interesting small towns we passed through. Perched in northeast Iowa between the Mississippi River and towering bluffs, the town is laid along the river and the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks, sandwiched between bluffs and stretched along one single street - Main Street. The architecture of this town was fascinating as well, and uncharacteristically, at the end of Main Street was visible the Catholic Church. Normally perched on a high, visible point in town, that was clearly not possible here, so its position, visible to all patrons visiting businesses (and likely saloons back in the day), was perfect to remind them to mind themselves!

Main Street McGregor, Iowa

One of the most beautiful stretches - indeed in my book a top ten ride - was the journey along the Wisconsin River from Bridgeport to Millville, across the heart of the driftless region to Lancaster and finally east to Mineral Point, Wisconsin. All on quiet rural roads. This countryside, on a picture perfect day, was just stunning in its juxtaposition of hills, valleys, woods and pastures, a visual feast as if riding in a famous landscape painting. With this comes some towering hills to climb - not necessarily that long, but steep. But what goes up, must also come down, and there were some magnificent descents that, alas, seem way too short to rest the legs.

An endless visual feast!

We ended this particular 79 mile day in Mineral Point at the old, solid Walker House Inn - constructed in 1836 of stone, and purportedly haunted. Fully expecting all of our tires to be flat the next morning, the ghosts evidently did not know how to release the air, and we were spared their visitation. But this town was fascinating. History and geography combined for a town to be substantially constructed of stone buildings along a main street that seemed to rise up and straddle a ridge, thus called High Street. Settled by Cornish immigrant miners, Mineral Point was named for the lead mines. Wanting to build homes like their own back in Cornwall, they eschewed the traditional wood in favor of the limestone, many of which still remain today. The street closest to the lead mine was called "Shakerag Street" - lined with these old stone houses, where the womenfolk would "shake rags" when calling their men home for lunch.

The haunted Walker House Inn

High Street, Mineral Point

The old structures along Shakerag Street

Riding north through Dodgeville toward Spring Green, again through the heart of the driftless zone, I cruised down a long, gentle slope and came across an interesting chapel alongside the road. Compelled to stop by its unique architecture, I parked my bike and wandered thru the cemetery toward the chapel, finding a single rough, natural stone monument seeming to stand on end with no inscription, and a flat plate-like stone on the ground. Recognizing a small red square and some geometric patterns within an ironwork nameplate, I immediately realized that I had just stumbled upon the grave of Frank Lloyd Wright. As an Architect, this was a moving experience. Of course, Spring Green was the location of his ancestral home and his studio Taliesin, though this Unitarian church and grave is a bit out of town. Constructed by his Welsh forebears, as the story goes, Frank was a young boy when it was built, but managed to "apprentice" himself to the well known Architect from Chicago, Joseph Silsbee, as a "boy architect belonging to the family (who) looked after (its) interior".

The Unitarian Church, Spring Green

The grave of Frank Lloyd Wright

[WRITERS ADDENDUM: I was informed by a loyal reader that FLW's remains are not at this location, but rather exhumed in 1985, cremated and mixed with his third wife's ashes in Taliesin, Arizona. It is actually quite a lurid story, involving an affair ending in murder, family disputes, etc. He was obviously a great Architect, but perhaps not a great person? For more information, this link to a blogpost and to a 1985 New York Times story may answer your questions. 08/13/19]

Small towns and landscapes were the visually capitvating part of this journey - connecting with rural America in a comfortable way. Yet within those small towns is an equally captivating gastronomical experience - the small cafes. We ate at numerous small, local establishments - we actually seek them out. It is true that these are typically not fancy, but usually just plain, good comfort food. Cruising into Reedsburg around lunchtime to start our journey on the 400 Trail, we stopped in Greenwood's Cafe, with its faded neon sign, and original counter seating. In all my travels through these small towns, however, did I ever expect to have "hotdish" on the menu! There it was - the daily special: "hamburger, mushroom and noodle hotdish" ! Now for those uninformed, hotdish is a quintessentially upper midwest name for "casserole" - the kind of dish made by ladies in the church basement get-togethers. It is typically noodles, typically hamburger, typically mixed with condensed soup and only a modest touch of seasoning as to maintain a comfortable blandness. And there it was, on the menu, and so we ordered it, with applesauce, of course - followed by a homemade peach pie a-la-mode chaser! Powerful stuff for the ride ahead, enough to drape your gut over the top tube for the next several hours!

It's true! Hotdish on the menu!

Stuffed and ready to roll from Greenwood's Cafe, Reedsburg

As we were on the back end of our journey in Mondovi, we participated in a very unusual gastronomical experience - a pop-up farm-to-table experience. Some enterprising farmers in this area have adopted the "pop-up" restaurant idea, borne out of the food truck craze, and made it a part of the farm experience. In our case, the pop-up was focused on hamburgers and pulled pork from the farm's herds. But this wasn't an "order and sit" experience - no - this was a wander the farmyard, play games, listen to the music of a singing couple, chase pigs, pet farm dogs - the whole farm experience. We mostly participated in bag toss, listened to the music, and danced a bit while awaiting our order. So overwhelmed were the owners by the crowd on this Friday night that we did not get our food for 2.5 hours, as darkness was setting in. I think the cooks were overwhelmed and tired, for the burger I had was quite overcooked, and the special sauce of (heavily) bourbon infused cherries dominated the taste buds, and managed, after two beers, to make me a bit unsteady! This was interesting as an experience, if not fully pleasing in the end to the palate.

The pop-up farm experience - at least there was good beer!

One of the planned highlights of the trip was the rails-to-trails that we linked together over several days: the 400 trail (Reedsburg to Elroy), the Elroy Sparta Trail, the LaCrosse River Trail (Sparta to Onalaska), and the Great River Trail (Onalaska to Trempealeau). The Elroy Sparta trail is 50 years old this year - the first rail-to-trail in the nation - featuring passage through three old railroad tunnels carved through the "driftless" rock the glaciers left behind. I have ridden these trails twice before, in 2004 as a training ride for a longer trip, and in 1994 with my young son Ryan on a father-son bike trip. It was just nice to visit these trails again, enjoy the absence of traffic and the view "from the train" of the countryside. And we wound up our trip along the Red Cedar Trail - a splendid course along the Red Cedar River ending in Menominee.

Rich, me, Brum and Paul in front of Tunnel #1

If you wondered about the "light at the end of the tunnel",
it does exist! This, Tunnel #3 on the Elroy Sparta Trail.

Such great sights so close to home, I can only ask why have I waited so long for this trip? I had set my expectations quite low, as it was merely a "local" trip, not a far-off exotic journey requiring more planning. It well exceeded those low expectations, and I now know this area to be even more accessible for me, my bicycle, and my heart!

Some of my favorite images from the trip: