Time To Get Away

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne~

In the middle of planning our parish Sausage Supper kitchen project Hubby Tony and I figured it would be nice to have a short break from the real world when we got done. We researched some options and decided on a trip to Galena Illinois, which is close to the Mississippi River not too far from the Iowa and Wisconsin borders. The city is five hours north of our house, and we hoped there would be some leaf color to see. 

We left on Sunday and arrived home last night. Sadly, there wasn't much leaf color yet but we still had a good time.

GALENA

Our home base for the trip was the De Soto House Hotel, which has been in continuous use since 1855. The building was right in the middle of the Main Street shopping area, which made it convenient for doing tourist things. Across the street there was a set of stairways to the upper streets, and two blocks in the other direction a bridge went over the Galena River to a historic residential area.

Many notable people have stayed at the De Soto House, including Abraham Lincoln, Stephan Douglas, and Ulysses S. Grant. Grant lived in Galena after he left St. Louis and worked in his father's leather good store. Later, he actually used two of the hotel rooms as his presidential campaign headquarters.

In the present day each guest room was named after a person who had stayed in the hotel. Our courtyard-facing room was called the Simpson Grant (who was one of Ulysses' brothers). 

Tony and I took a trolley tour of the town and then went back and walked through many of the historical areas. We browsed through the shops, and made a few purchases. We ate dinner in two of the hotel's three restaurants, as well as several others around town, and compared and contrasted coffee from several of the places that offered it. We even had a flight of samples of five different root beers that were on tap at a root beer store.

IOWA

The first night at dinner we were talking to the couple sitting at another table. The man asked if we were going to visit the baseball Field of Dreams movie site, which was a nice day trip. That hadn't occurred to either of us, but sounded like a great idea. Tony made reservations for a tour.Dyersville was about an hour from the hotel. Our map app had us take a state highway, then turn on a series of two lane roads. There was no directional signage, and the only indication we had arrived was a sign just outside the entrance gate and some baseball field light poles.

We arrived twenty minutes before the tour started. The gate attendant told us we could walk around, and borrow a ball, bat, or mitt from the available selection. She did suggest that if we walked into the corn surrounding the outfield it would be a good idea not to go too far.

The farm house is up a small rise from the ball field. We waited with several other couples for the tour to start. The tour was led by a woman who had been an extra in the movie. She shared a lot of facts about how the history of the property, how the movie came to be filmed there, and trivia about the filming.I haven't seen the movie for several years, but now I want to watch it again.

After we finished at the movie site we drove into Dyersville for lunch and a walk around the small downtown area. We stopped into the Basilica of St. Francis Xavier, a church designated as important by the Pope because it carries a special spiritual, historical, or architectural significance. St. Francis Xavier is one of 53 basilicas in the United States, and one of three which are not located in big cities. I thought it was interesting that the Basilica Coat of Arms included ears of corn and a bundle of wheat.

WISCONSIN

Galena is about a half hour away from the Wisconsin state line. I had never been in the state before and wanted to do something there "just because". One of the tourism guidebooks we picked up had a list of day trips. Tony did some research and we decided on the small town of Shullsburg (the state's third oldest community, which figured predominantly in Lead Belt history). 

 The drive there took us through cornfields and rolling hills.  When we got there we watched a video in the Visitor Center about the town and its history, then walked around the small historic downtown, looked into the windows of a cheese factory, strolled over to the Catholic church (which was surrounded by streets named Peace, Truth, Goodness, Charity, Happy, Friendship, Faith, Pious, Justice, Wisdom, Virtue, Mercy, Judgement, and Hope). The restaurant we chose didn't offer the traditional lunch pasties that day, but we still managed to find great home style food.

Unfortunately, we found out that the Badger Lead Mine and Museum were only open seasonally, and just as we started looking for Gravity Hill it started to rain.I wonder if we'll ever get back there to try it out?

THERE AND BACK

On our drive we stayed off the interstates as much as possible. Instead we took the Great River Road, which follows the Mississippi River. Some times the river was visible,

and often the road veered away from the water, 

 but it was always scenic.

Five years ago: Laugh Out Loud