Marquette, IA
After our two rest days in Holeman, WI, at Bill’s brother Joe’s, we continued this morning on our southerly pedal to meet up with the four who took the Lewis & Clark route to Council Bluffs and RAGBRAI.
Joe drove us to Goose Island Park off Hwy 35, thus saving us about 15 miles through busy La Crosse.
It's to laugh, both of us were stiff and sore after our rest days. We took it easy and had a very enjoyable ride along the Mississippi. The road was undemanding, but the shoulder was poor in many places. This part of our route is very familiar to me as it is on the ABB Great Mississippi River Ride route. After a couple of days with few pix, this blog is loaded.
We stopped for coffee in Stoddard. We stopped at Lock 8 for pix, though no boats were going through. Stopped again in Ferryville for cheese curds and lunch at a picnic table at a bend in the river.
 |
| Lock 8 |
 |
| Lock 8 |
 |
| Stop in Ferryville for cheese curd snack |
Queen Ann's Lace, Bee Balm, Chickory, Crown Vetch, and Black-eyed Susans were blooming all along the route. Also some flower that I don’t recognize was in seed and its fluffy seed carrier was blowing like snow.
Mayflies were hatching all along the river—millions of them. In some places they covered the shoulder. Shortly after Ferryville we took pix of millions of them clinging to and bending tree branches nearly to the ground.
 |
| Thousands of Giant Mayflies cover a viewing platform beside the road |
 |
| Mayflies still cling to my bike clothes, even after I cycled some distance in the wind |
Just before Prairie du Chien, we stopped for an hour and a half at a Cabella’s store. I bought a new white, burnout print, short-sleeved top. I am very tired of the same three outfits over and over and over and over and over and over.
 |
| Bill clowning around in Cabellas |
After this we crossed the River into Marquette, Iowa, took a couple of twinkie shots of ourselves with a casino's pink elephants, and then climbed 3 miles up an 8% grade to Pike’s Peak State Park where I now sit composing this post.
 |
| We saw pink elephants at the foot of our climb to Pike's Peak though we hadn't yet cracked our dinner beers |
 |
| Bill jokingly holding a coke bottle in front of his beer bottle |
