I&M Canal

I didn't make it back to Michigan last night as I had hoped.  I ended up staying the night in Rockford, Illinois.  Since I had the whole day today to drive a comparatively short distance, I sought an opportunity to use my bike one last time in an exotic location.  I found good spot in the The Illinois & Michigan Canal trail. 

I parked in the town of Morris and rode about seven miles to the Aux Sable lockhouse and aqueduct.  The original canal ran ninety miles while it was in use.  Today sixty have been restored for recreational use.  A modern shipway replaced the historical canal in the 1930s.

Riding back to the car was a lot easier than riding out, probably a combination of the wind and grade both being easier going west.  I had a couple near scuffles with Canadian Geese guarding there new chicks, but at least my bike worked OK, a notable feat given its been on the back of the car for nearly 2,000 miles.

He built. I came.

The farm used in Field of Dreams, which is just a couple miles east of Dyersville, Iowa, remains largely as it was when they finished filming.   I arrived there right about sunset and the place was pretty deserted. The original owners apparently still live in the farm house, maintain the site, and run a small gift shop (closed by the time I arrived).  Somewhat surprising, they don't charge admission to the 65,000 people who come to see the farmhouse & baseball diamond each year.  Other than lack of corn on the outfield & powerline running over the infield, it looked just like in the movie.  Carved into the bleachers is a heart that says "Ray loves Annie."  I don't remember where/if this featured in the movie.  I'll have to watch it again to refresh my memory.

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.

Effigy Mounds

After nearly three days on the road, I finally made it to the Mississippi; but before crossing it, I had a couple more things to see.  Across the river from Prairie du Chien, I paid a visit to Effigy Mounds National Monument.   After browsing the museum, I hiked a trail the led up a bluff overlooking the river valley.  Along the trail were a number of prehistoric native American mounds of various shapes & sizes (e.g. conical, linear).  The most interesting were a those that looked like bears.  I hiked a little further to see Twin Views Overlook, but found the best vista at Fire Point closer to the trailhead.

Music Man Square

Meredith Wilson, who wrote the Music Man, grew up in Mason City, Iowa.  The fictional town in the musical, River City, is based on his boyhood hometown.  I parked in downtown & discovered the bike rack was a little loose.  Since I had to take the bike off to tighten the rack, I figured I might as well ride around for a while.  I ended up going about five miles in forty-five minutes.   I passed Wilson's childhood home, the library, and a footbridge named after him.  They also have a Frank Lloyd Wright House in town.

Pilot Knob

By shear coincidence, I camped last night in the shadow of Iowa's second highest point.  I didn't plan follow my visit to the state highest point with one to its junior, but as the day came to an end, Pilot Knob State Park was the logical place to stop.

In the morning I hiked up to the Knob.  It may be 250 feet shorter than Hawkeye Point, but the setting is more befitting a highpoint.  The CCC constructed an three-storey observation tower, which adds immensely to the already impressive view.

After coming down from the Knob.I extended my morning hike a couple of miles around a couple of the lakes tuckeeld in the hills of the park.

Cayler's Prairie

I thought twice about leaving the highway to check out Cayler's Prairie State Preserve and twice again when I saw the only facilities were a small, grass parking lot & simple park sign, but I I decided to allow myself a half-hour to explore and used every minute. There were no established trails so I just wandered through though the Preserve.  It doesn't look too big at first, but depending, on the direction and immediate topography, there were several places where all I could see is prairie.  With a little imagination, I could imagine the grasses stretching hundreds of miles across the plains, and that alone made the stop worth several times the length of my visit.

Hawkeye Point

I'm writing this post from the highest point in the state of Iowa, well-named Hawkeye point.  Like my other recent highpoint summits, this one is a drive up 'peak'.  It is basically a small rise in someone's back yard, with panoramic views of farm fields.  There is even a tractor filling the field immediately to the east.
The highpoint is dressed up with a flagpole, mileposts showing the distances to other state highpoints (surely Hawaii's is wrong--1,035 miles to Mauna Kea), and some monuments.  It's rather pleasant here in the shade, but I can't stay.  I guess it's downhill to Illinois.

Floyd's Bluff

My last stop with a Lewis & Clark connection was Floyd's Bluff near Sioux City, Iowa.  Sergeant Floyd was the only member of the expedition to die during the trip.   The suspicion is that he died from appendicitis.   After his death, the crew buried him on the highest nearby bluff along the river.   The river under mined his original burial site.  This monument stands a couple hundred yards from that site.

I only just finished reading Stephen Ambrose's biography of Meriweather Lewis in January.  It's been really interesting to stop by a some of the related sites while the info was relatively fresh in my mind.

Spirit Mound

Before slipping east into Iowa, I detoured across a corner oslf South Dakota in order to stop at Spirit Mound, a solitary hill on a five-acre plot of original prairie.  Native Americans believed the hill to be haunted.  Lewis & Clark climbed the hill on their way up the Missouri.   I hiked about a mile & half from the parking area to reach the top. 

Ponca State Park

Last night, I camped in Ponca State Park on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River a few miles upstream from Sioux City, Iowa.  I got an early start to my day thanks to a noisy turkey wandering through the campground.  In fact, I had broken camp and started hiking before the alarm on my phone started beeping.

I eyed two trails in the park for hiking in the morning, but one was hard to follow; the other, hard to even find.  I ended making my own way along the shore of the river.  I saw plenty of birds including pelicans, turkey vultures and the ubiquitous Canada goose.  I had to engineer my own bridge to cross a small channel separating a quasi-island from the shore.  It wasn't much but kept my feet dry.

When I finished hiking, I drove to Three State Overlook, the best view in the park.  Below the observation deck, the Missouri flows through one of two unrestrained sections.  In addition to Nebraska, South Dakota & Iowa are visible from the overlook.  I also stopped in the new Missouri River Museum on the park grounds to spend thirty minutes or so perusing the exhibits.

Niobrara State Park

When we left left the Niobrara River, give or take a hundred miles upsream, it was a modest affair.  Just before it debauches into the Missouri here at the eponymously named state park, it has nearly tripled in size.  After I arrived in the park, I took my bike off the car rack and set off to ride the three mile loop along the park road.  They weren't kidding when they said there were lots of hills! 

I walked my bike a short distance along a foot trail to find the old railroad bridge (now converted to a trail) that crosses the Niobrara before it spills in to the Missouri.  Most of the trail was pretty torn up from floods, but the boardwalk over the trestle was in good shape.  I had so much fun crossing it, I rode back & forth a second time.

For a grand finale in the park, I pedalled to the scenic overlook behind the group lodge (where I typed this post) .  The view up,  down, & across the river is amazing.   Lewis & Clark camped for a night just down the bluff.  It is easy to picture their expeditipn struggling against the current on their way west.

Smith Falls

The grand dame of waterfalls in a state not known for waterfalls, Nebraska's Smith Falls does the state proud.  Tucked a couple hundred yards up a deep ravine off the Niobrara River, the seventy-foot cascade tumbles off a protrusion at the end of the ravine and tumbles down the cliff in intermingling streams.

The falls are the centerpiece of a state park near Valentine.  I also walked the modest McAllister Nature Trail.  For a highlight, it powers up the steep hillside, out of the river valley and into the edge of the the plains with views out on to the northern ripples of the Sandhills. The trails returns along the Niobrara river, here maybe 2/3rds the size of the St. Joe through Niles.  After spending the winter in the arid west, I found its swift flow a refreshing sight.

Cowboy Trail

Colorado has been a tougher nut to crack than I calculated.  After six months in the state without much success looking for work, I'm heading back to Michigan to regroup.  I'll take an extra couple days to make the drive.  Today, I made it as far as Valentine in north central Nebraska.  I came here foremost to see a striking railroad viaduct over the Niobrara River.   The old railroad grade is now a trail, the longest railtrail in the country in fact.  I rode five or six of its 195 miles, on a twenty mile ride that also criss-crosed the streets of Valentine.