On Saturday, we planned to get breakfast at a restaurant so as to give me a better start to the day. Phil stopped by the hotel breakfast room and said they had scrambled eggs, a meat, fruit bowl, so he convinced me to try that.
There were scrambled eggs but I wouldn’t describe them as real. 
I named the meat “Turkey Spam” once I had a bite. And the slightly thawed frozen fruit was just so-so. However, they did have hot water to top off my cream for a cup of hot cocoa that was good! 🙂
Then we hung out in the room until the local quilt shop opened at 10. I sewed down a binding while Phil enjoyed a movie.
The quilt shop was easy to find as it was on the main road through town. Phil went get to gas and then read the various attractions papers we had picked up at the Visitor’s Center. The shop, Front Porch Quilts, is in a house and fills the whole downstairs. It was PACKED with fabric! She carries a lot of Moda lines and charm packs or jelly rolls. I narrowed my choice and bought 2 charm packs, a border fabric, and some background that I plan to use for my June LaPetité project. She had great choices!
We then crossed the Mississippi River… AGAIN…. always with my eyes closed and head down… 😦 and returned to Iowa. We didn’t have a plan but would enjoy a look-out or hike if we found something. We almost headed north to the Effigy Mounds but went south to see what we could see first. The IA Visitor’s Center was to be south the sign said.
We didn’t find the Visitor’s Center but turned the corner and the highway went right through downtown McGregor. Lo and behold, they were having festival days or such and there was an arts & crafts area with lots of booths. We found free parking and walked to the craft tents.
Most of the downtown buildings have been fixed up but not this one. I love the windows here.
A few nice places…. barn board signs (one nearly came home with me but I’m hoping some friends would like to help me stencil on my own barn board :wink:), photos of old doors used as greeting cards or framed (sorry K, too $$$), and a Corian cutting board booth! I bought a new one for my kitchen. I have an old piece of Corian from one of Dad’s jobs but it is cracked and I don’t like using it for food anymore.
We had hoped for a special pizza place for lunch but finding none after walking around the downtown, we went to the local Mexican restaurant. It was super yummy so we were glad we tried it.
In our wanderings, we found a sign pointing out the steps to the overlook. We thought that was a good way to walk off lunch. After having Phil slow down for the cave hike yesterday, now I told him to hurry across the foot bridge over a town street. Yikes!!
I love the wild columbine growing in any nook & cranny it can find! Can I make a woodland planting area here?
A large barge-loading grainery was next to the overlook area which Phil enjoyed seeing from the top. The river has seemed high every where we’ve looked.
After this walk, we thought we’d support Aunt Sadie’s Sweet Shop… but really charging for pie filling in a store bought pie crust should be a crime!!
The far right bottom photo is from the top of the walkway looking back down to the town.
We then headed out of town to the church at the end of the road. Very cute from downtown!
We continued down the River Road, aiming to visit Pike’s Peak State Park.
The State Park had many hummingbird feeders that were busy with activity! I was engrossed!!
There were so many hummingbirds that they would squawk at each other fighting over the spout. I’ve never seen so many at once! Of course, difficult to capture on my camera.
We enjoyed the 2 overlooks here —
The bridge in the larger photo is across the Wisconsin River; here is where it joins the Mississippi River.
Not too bad for a Facebook photo! 😉
Then we hiked the trails around the Indian Mounds at the park. The signs said we walked 1.1 miles for the main loop; we voted out of the 3 mile hike! It was a nice trail with a little waterfall here as well.
I jumped for joy at finding blooming Jack-in-the-Pulpit flowers! Phil laughed at finding a dried out Morel mushroom that no one had picked.
Sorry for such a long post…. I’ll cut it short at this time. After this park, we continued down River Road to Highway 52 (imagine that!) and took that into Dubuque. Missing the ability to find the quaint downtown, then driving out to the new section and deciding we didn’t want new & normal for pizza, we went to Galena in hopes of finding a place.
Seriously, we should have known that Galena on a Saturday was a dumb idea. But we didn’t think it was THIS dumb. Ack!! So much “our neighborhood” but without being Chicago-ites or of the same gender, we were totally out of place. However, we found a pizza place off the main drag, recoginized the hostess from our visit to our church campus there, and ordered a pizza. Phil liked it; I didn’t. But no matter, the next stop was home.
We arrived home about 8:30. Still enough daylight to see the large branch that had blown off a tree onto some equipment during the night and in time to be warmly greeted by Nina who must have missed us greatly! JP just greeted us. 🙂
and sew on... 