First Day of Rain, more Iowa that I Expected

Thursday, July 17:

Staying in the little town of Cresco last night, I woke up this a.m. to real rain. Not heavy, but enough to use the wipers more than on intermittent. Believe it or not, since I began this trip on June 14th, 7,195 miles ago, this is the first real rain I have encountered. After having oatmeal and a cinnamon roll for breakfast at Suzy-Q’s, I started driving back to U.S. 52 (Cresco is on State Road 9 in Iowa.) However, I quickly came upon the Cresco Public Library—still in its Carnegie building of 1914. Going inside, I checked out (pardon the library pun) the inside of the building with its distinctive wood and stained glass windows that had been preserved. The building had an addition added; tasteful designed to match the original Carnegie in wood and design lines.

The library staff and I had a chat, which included how I got the idea for following a United States Highway from the start/end point. I told them about reading William Least-Heat Moon’s book, Blue Highways, more that twenty years ago. His idea of traveling the highway colored blue on the road maps of the day, I morphed into following a United States Highway and staying off the Interstates as much as possible. I read them my favorite line from the book: “the 42,500 miles of the straight and wide could lead to hell for all I cared; I was going to stay on the three million miles of bent and narrow rural American two-lane roads….”

Leaving Cresco, I headed back up to Harmony, MN to pick up U.S.52. This was not the most direct way to U.S. 52, but it is essentially where I “detoured to go to Mason City, Iowa.” South of Harmony, at the Minnesota/Iowa state line, was the State Line United Methodist little country Church and its cemetery. It was on the Minnesota side.

Passing quickly through the town of Prosper, because there was not much to it, I came to Burr Oak, Iowa. This is a small town where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived a few years with her family, helping to run a boarding house. It was not a good time for Laura so she never wrote about her experiences there in her Little House series of books. One starts the tour at an old bank building across the street from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. In the museum, many period pieces, including some of Laura’s, are displayed. As a boarding house, twenty people could stay a night in a total of four bedrooms. The Ingalls family of five lived in one room. Ma Ingalls and the girls did the cooking for the guests in the boarding house. It is a side of Laura’s life that is not shared in the books, and, as I recall, was not part of the TV series.

Upon recommendation of the tour guide, I found an interesting restaurant in Decorah for a late lunch, including graham cracker pie. The only place I would find graham cracker pie before this week was Barbara Fritchie’s Restaurant in Fredrick, Maryland. Within two days, I have found it on this trip. The other place for graham cracker pie was in Austin, MN in the restaurant where I had the Spamburger.

Also, upon the recommendation of the Wilder Museum tour guide, I made a small detour off of U.S. 52 into Spillville, IA late in the afternoon. Spillville is a predominantly Czech town of about 400 people, which was founded in 1854 by Joseph Spielman. Although the first few settlers were German, like Spielman, the majority to follow were Bohemian and Czechoslovakian. They all immigrated to the site lovingly called "Little Switzerland" and made it their home. There I found the Bily Clocks Museum. Two brothers, Frank and Joseph Bily (pronounced bee lee) were Czech farmers. When they were idle in farm work, they set about carving and creating elaborate wooden clocks, beginning in 1913. There is no way to describe the details that were created in these works of art. No pictures were allowed, so postcards will have to do. Also, the second floor of the building was the home of the famous Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, and his family during the summer of 1893. The building’s first floor housed his friend’s tin shop. The Bily Clocks were moved to the building in 1946. Within the St. Wenceslaus Church’s graveyard, where the two Bily brothers are buried, are elaborate metal crucifix tomb markers. They reminded me of the ones Bridgie and I saw in Victoria, Kansas on our trip passing through there in 1981.

While in Spillville, I visited the public library (not a Carnegie). The library was going to close in twenty minutes, so I only had time to read and respond to a few emails.

Driving through the town of Ossian, IA, “advertised” was a public restroom and phone. The sign led me to just that, built and available as part of the City Office Building and Library. The door was opened to the very well kept restroom and phone in the lobby. I made use of both. I drove away thinking, “Umm, I wish more towns off the Interstate would be so accommodating.

I drove across the Mississippi River across McGregor, IA into Prairie du Chen, Wisconsin. Being told there was a McDonalds, I was hoping for wifi access, but none was available. So, I wrote my day’s adventures into a Microsoft Word document, ready to copy into the blog when I found wifi again.

In spite of my trip’s first day of cloudy skies all day, it was a very good day.