Prairie Du Chien

We split the distance from Dubuque to Minneapolis and stayed for a couple of days near Prairie Du Chien. We actually stayed across the river in Minnesota at a campground near McGregor. Called the Spook Cave and RV Campground, this is one of my very favorite campgrounds yet. It actually has a cave!

The camp owners conduct boat tours of the water cave. Russ took the tour and enjoyed the stalactites of the smallish cave. Of course, if you have ever gone to Carlsbad Caverns, all other caves are smallish. The little river that comes out of the cave winds through the campground and is accompanied by a few falls. Plus, there is a fishing and swimming lake in the campground (I wouldn’t go in the lake, it is a bit green and slimy.) There was also a sluicing station where you could buy a bag of dirt in the camp store and go out to the sluice to mine your guaranteed number of rocks or fossils. Very popular with the kids, I was tempted myself.

Russ and I joke with each other that it wouldn’t be camping unless we could hear trains passing nearby. This time, the train actually ran through the campground, but since it was just a small spur from the main rail terminal by McGregor, they were slow moving small trains.  Rather pleasant, except for  the one at 3:30 am.

We discovered that McGregor had suffered a direct hit by a tornado in July and much of the downtown area was closed for cleanup. This is a historic town and it was sad to see the pictures of the devastation; at least two historic buildings were totally lost. We could see the path the tornado took through the woods leading to the town as it followed the road we took from our campground. We didn’t go to the state park that sits directly above the town on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi; the townspeople told us that two of the three hiking trails were closed for cleanup and much of the park was closed.

Prairie Du Chien (Dog’s Prairie) was a popular fur trading post in the very early days of the area, but the earlier French settlement on the river is mostly gone, with only a few buildings remaining. It is the largest town in the area (population 6,000), with restaurants and grocery stores for the area. It sits on the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. We took a scenic drive along Wisconsin River one afternoon and saw many lovely farms and towns.

This was a quiet and peaceful stay, now on to Minneapolis and the state fair!

Our campsite was huge and backed up to a large limestone escarpment.

A very pretty lake is part of the campground. Nice to sun by, but I wouldn't go in the water.

The camp store is a throw back to the 50s, complete with a resident cat.

A few springs came out of the escarpment, forming some nice little waterfalls.

The town of McGregor is a popular tourist attraction, but this year, it was forced to pretty much shut down because of tornado damage.

The Ringling family lived in McGregor when the brothers were little. The start of the circus really started here.

Did anyone have a baseball glove like this? The museum was a better than average garage museum, with some items that gave me a sense of nostalgia.

A typical view from our truck as we travel through Wisconsin. 

The Wisconsin River, near the confluence with the Mississippi River

Frank Lloyd Wright's influence is seen all around Wisconsin. We came upon this Mayan Revival warehouse in Richland Center. I remember studying it as part of a college class.

Elephant Truck Rock was one of the attractions we saw on our Wisconsin River road tour.

All the guys were excited to take the cave tour!

Several of the cave passages were quite low.

Stalactites were everywhere.

The bright spot is an opening to the cave from atop the escarpment. The cave was discovered when the locals explored the opening for the spooky noises that were coming out.

Russ was happy to see daylight.