Day 23 - to St Paul

We stayed overnight at a cool little town called Dubuque, boasting a population of around 57,000. Dubuque lies close to the junction of three states: Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois, otherwise known as the Tri-State area.

First up, we decided to head out and have a look at the Gun Shot Tower - built in 1856 to provide a stock of lead shot for the military.  If this was in New Zealand, there'd be a bungee cord dangling from the top...

The Dubuque Star brewery building was just a stone's throw away.

The #1 attraction of the Dubuque, according to TripAdvisor was the Fenelon Place Elevator;  the "Worlds Shortest, Steepest Railway". We were both pretty familiar with these gizmos, coming from Wellington, so we took this quick shot through the windscreen and moved on.

I must say, I was quite intrigued by the mix of old and modern architecture, marine and heavy industrial links of this place. 

Here's an old bridge over the Mississippi at Dubuque.  A portion of the bridge could swing 90 degrees to allow for the passage of ships.

Next stop on the way north to St Paul was Guttenburg, Iowa - a lovely little town on the banks of the Mississippi.  There's another dam and lock here; the tenth such water-controlling system upstream from St.Louis.

At Guttenburg, you'll find a bunch of old stone buildings, dating back to the 1850s, mixed in with more modern urban dwellings.

We had a chat with the owner of the three-storied stone building in the centre of this shot.  He was renovating this 160 year-old building to apartments and proudly showed us through from top to bottom.

There is a certain pride in place here that we've seen over much of this country...

The road continued northwards, mostly hugging the river.  And what a lovely road it was - often flanked by trees of many shades of green and the ever-present fertile black soil of tilled Iowa farmland.

As we crossed one of many bridges over the Mississippi...
 

...we caught sight of a stunning old paddle steamer, tied up on the edge of the river at Marquette.  We missed out on our paddle steamer experience at Hannibal so we were determined to at least set foot on this one.  And it was a beauty.  It was actually attached to a large casino complex and once on board, we quickly realised this lovely old steamer is now a floating casino.  All three floors sported one-armed bandits and folks prepared to gamble their quarters away.

Everyone was inside, enjoying the air-conditioning, flashing lights and occasional gold rush of cascading quarters, therefore our walk around the outside of the paddler was unimpeded.  So we stopped to enjoy the quiet solitude of it all...

Did I say this was a rather large steamer?  Here's the base of the smoke stack.

 

 Marquette City Hall.  You can't fight it...

Just five miles down there road are a load of Indian effigy mounds at the Effigy Mounds National Monument.  A long long (long) time ago, the locals constructed these mounds, often in the shape of animals over the bodies of their departed.  Here, a park ranger is explaining the story to Nige.  And there's a mound in the background.

We knew we were running short on time, as we (I) had to be in St Paul for a meeting later this afternoon - but the short walk up the hill to view more effigy mounds was far too inviting...

On the way, we heard the tap-tap-tapping of a woodpecker echoing around the forest.  I think this is the chap making all the noise.

More mounds...

And cool baby trees...

We were rewarded with awesome views of the Mississippi from the top of the hill.

 

This was a known eagle roosting area, and the sight of a mature Bald Eagle gliding past below us was a sight to behold.

With the Chevy's four cylinders pumping, we made excellent progress northward and passed more healthy farmland on the way.

As we passed into Minnesota, we stumbled onto the Amish Byway, Highway 52 near Harmony.  The Amish came to Minnesota in the 1970s from Ohio and now Harmony is the hub of Minnesota's Amish Country.  

The road here has an extra-wide section on either side, just for the horses and carts, it seems.

We were thinking we'd be lucky if we saw any of the Amish but when we noticed an increased  prevalence of horse poop on the sides of the road, we thought our chances were looking slightly more favourable.

Then in the distance...

We were careful not to photograph the folks driving these delightful wagons, as we've heard that's not the done-thing.

And because we've seen so many farms in our 300+ miles today, here's another one for good measure.