More Wineries –& Scenery, too.

Arriving in Polk County's St. Croix Falls (county population around 2,000 –maybe) we were told to put our Covid masks back in our pockets because Wisconsin leaves such imperious decisions up to the individual counties.

Aside from the neat-as-a-pinot facilities at the Deer Lake Winery, the fact that we could sit at a table sipping our wine and enjoying our pre-dinner cheese platter along with other people similarly engaged gave us a good mellow feeling. This is one of the Harvest Host locations that allows your RV to spend the night for free, after registering, in return for the presumption that you will buy something. In this case, we found a bottle of a Pinot Grigio we liked enough that we bought a second one. We know nothing about wine, but do like to sip on occasion, which allows us to feel edumacated and sophisticatory around other people who also know nothing about wine.   

Down the road were a bunch of potholes. We know we're talking to a Michigan crowd and the seemingly obstinate Governor Whitmer, who refuses to hear the Legislature, just indebted us for another $800 million more, allegedly to Fix the Damn Roads

because they wouldn't give her the horrid gasoline tax she wanted, but in this case the potholes are quite ancient and are not to be fixed –nor even necessarily damned– because they were caused by swirling eddies thousands of years ago as the big glaciers melted away, the rivers ran in torrents, and the raging waters carried stone bits sharp enough and in sufficient quantities to cut rock. There was quite a collection of holes beyond these six pictured here at Interstate State Park (again, nothing to do with roads; the WI/MN border is here), safely contained behind fences so as not to swallow little cars and bigger truck tires.

We're not traveling very far each day mainly because pushing this monstrous motor coach bus is more stressful than driving a car and two-to-three hours seems about the limit before yawning. We recall we were driving longer shifts on the way back last year after four months on the road and suppose that may happen again. For this next leg, we just went down the road 130 miles to Winona, Minnesota and pulled into another Harvest Host. This was at the top of a steep hill, 600 feet above the Mississippi River flowing by its feet, and we were in an asphalt parking lot. But we had a vista for our evening aperitif and easy access to local sights.

We stayed two nights and spent the intervening day driving another 120 miles: upstream to Red Wing, MN, crossing the river, and back to Winona on the Wisconsin side.

We also tried a few of their wines and bought two glasses with some cheese curds to be polite. The wines tasted okay, nothing special, but the whites were a strong yellow –the yellow-almost-orange you see in the bowl when you haven't hydrated sufficiently. John firmly believes that eyes are as connected to tasty enjoyment as is nose.

Neighbors Greg and Katie had told us we would not be disappointed with the scenery around this area southeast of Minneapolis. We skirted the big city, as you can see on our recorded GPS track captured on the bigger map up there and tested their word. They are honest and truthful. For one, John was amazed that the mighty Mississippi was so broad this far north, albeit widely fringed with shallow, marshy areas; we had arrived from the north in Wisconsin, crossing the water via four or more bridges on Highway 54.   For two, our pre-dinner conversation looked over vines and trees falling to a deeper valley. The next day we jumped on US-14, which becomes US-61, headed north and west toward Red Wing, passing by a KFC on the way. **

The Mississippi is just a mere shadow of its former self, born in the gushing runoff from the mile high glaciers of ice that carved the Great Lakes area into what it is today (and are carving still, we suppose, despite political promises of mankind's puny efforts to restore and sustain). Yet the wide river is deep enough for actual boat traffic.

On this Monday –the 14th– several sailboats were on Pepin Lake, which you might suspect to be just a misnomer for a wider, deeper pool between faster moving portions of river but several signs (and our Harvest Host winery proprietor) explain that it is an actual lake.

Or was, once upon a geologic time, before all that glacial meltwater cut new channels here and there and connected it to rushing waters on either side. John read once where Pepin, aside from being one of the original tourist attractions of this area, is an area that Minnesotans watch for the spring IceOut. When the last of the solid water disappears, they drag out the boats and put the ice shanties away. Unless, of course, they're buying the new Ice Shanty RV trailers that we've seen in the campgrounds in this area but no where else before this year in our travels. All the amenities of an RV (kitchen, fridge, toilet, bunks) and holes in the floor for fish retrieval. Here's one brand, by way of example:

But it's not that cold yet. We see some of the trees are just now beginning to get a tinge of fall color and we are closing the windows at night for the most part. The river is lined with sharply defined high limestone cliffs.

Maiden Rock, named after an Indian legend, is one of the many such hills –this one on the Wisconsin side– that Debbie says she “really likes” for the way they spring suddenly from the lower land.

Frontenac State Park provides nice views and hiking trails ranging from flat to serious hill climbing.  John's smiling here because he's walking downhill.

** Headed to Steven's on our first day out of home, we could not avoid stopping at the Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Big Rapids. We've always had a fondness for their salad bars and other meals and cannot possibly begin to understand why the company allowed its Grand Rapids store to close a couple decades ago without opening another somewhere in our metro area. The point is, we ate out for lunch that day then took Steven to dinner two nights later (complete with ice cream!). John was looking askance at the wantonly spending woman who'd replaced his wife but she settled down through the UP and up along Lake Superior's northern shore, forcing him to eat whatever she cooked in our mobile kitchen. Then, in Duluth she suggested going to a barbecue place called “OMC” (it stands for “Oink, Moo, Cluck”) even if they did force us to sit outside in the cold, eating our animal parts on ToGo ware, and grumbled about bringing a salt shaker when requested. The very next day found us sitting inside the Deer Lake Winery with a professionally assembled cheese 'n' fruit tray (and two bottles of wine on the bill (one was to take for another day; please don't get the wrong idea of our alcohol consumption) and then, two nights later, Debbie suggested that we get fried chicken at a KFC, of all places! John's not sure what the Universe has in store to make him pay for this edible largess, but he is just as sure that there's another Ruby Tuesday in his immediate future! It would be a spoiler to reveal when/where at this point, so Stay Tuned, as he once was paid to say at times.