Leaving Wisconsin

Another vista of a turn in the River. You can't see, but there are 2 barges passing toward the point in this picture.

We came to a town, Lake City. With several large marinas, full of huge sailboats. It was a beautiful town, with a wonderful river walk through manicured grass, big trees, cute shops. And here I got my feet in the MS ...... well, not mud. It was rocky and gravelly. And a wonderful cool temperature to swim in. But we didn't. The river is so wide here, they call it Lake Pepin. Its widest point of anywhere.

At one of the lookouts on a very wide point of the MS River. Water is beautiful, clear blue-green.

The River has always been used commercially by Whites. But sometimes these log rafts covered acres, and the men working on them pitched their tent toward the front, and lived there. There was a chow hut in the middle of the raft. Then the logs were transported downstream somewhere, where they were sold. The job was very dangerous, both because of the currents and dangers of the MS River, but also because the logs, although strapped together, were unpredictable and could quite easily come apart. Sorry about the sideways pictures. I won't let it happen after this, promise.

After we left La Crosse, we crossed over the MS River, to Minnesota. And this is way toward the top of our list of beautiful states. The MS River goes back and forth from wide to narrow as we followed it up the eastern side of MN.