July 13 Amazing hills and whittled wood

 Today we had a pleasant breakfast and enjoyed chatting with our Warm Showers host.  It was a beautiful day with normal humidity.  We got about 3 miles out of town and a heard a voice say, “Jim!”  Our host had meant to take our pictures and had forgotten so tracked us down and got us live on the road.  

       We got to ride on the Golden Road today!

Today was a shorter day mileage-wise, but we had more and bigger hills, as we were in the part of Iowa that was not crossed by the last set of glaciers. So we often had beautiful views. We came across a church building perched on a hill, then with a lot of steps up to the original doors.  We sat on the steps and had a snack while looking over the countryside.

 Just beyond, was a corners called Gunder, and after going around the corner, we saw a sign on a building “Home of the Gunderburger.”  We had heard about the Gunderburger from our host and the place had just opened for the day, so we decided to eat an early lunch there. We found out that it was a 1 pound burger, so only ordered one and split it—very good!  In Monona, we went to the city park for a break, and Jim became intrigued by a sign on the museum across from the park, and went in to investigate.  We saw many continuous wooden chains that had been made by hand out of one piece of wood, a few with jack knives but most with exacto knives. as well as many items that had been whittled. Most of the items had been created by the father of the man who showed us around although a few were by members of a wood-working club that met there. 

This part of the museum was attached to an old house that had many old objects that would have been used by people a long time ago. There were old stoves,  a bed with a corn husk mattress, early washing machines, clothes, dolls and much much more, including the printing press that used to print the town’s newspaper. They also had some local military info and one touching article was about someone captured and two years later released at the end of the war.  We had a long hill coming down to the Mississippi, the road was rough so had to ride the brakes down the hill.   On an island in the middle of the river, we took a walk and saw a deer, a blue heron, one bald eagle as well as 4 ticks which desired to feed upon us but we refused. We knew there was poison ivy along the path but then discovered it was also on the path in some places but just shorter, so tonight we are staying at a motel so we could scrub our legs good with soap and water.    So today went from New Union, IA to Prairie du Chien,

 https://ridewithgps.com/trips/96418882