Quick Stops

While driving today, I made a couple short impromptu stops worth mentioning in brief.  My first stop outside of Mason City was Fort Atkinson, a frontier military post that was garrisoned during 1840s.  A short distance from there, I drove a couple miles off the highway to see St. Anthony's Chapel, billed as the smallest church.    Later in the day, I paralleled the Mississippi River for about a half-hour.  In the town of Guttenberg, I got out of the car a couple times; once at a wonderful park along the lever and then to climb up the observation deck at Lock & Dam No. 10.  While driving through the small town of Dyersville, I came across one of the grandest Basilicas I've ever seen, Saint Xavier.