About two weeks ago, we began driving past cornfields. Acres, then miles. Well, miles turned into hours, which turned into days. We've been driving through undulating hills of corn and soybeans for WEEKS now. Such beautiful country.
We stopped at a roadside market to buy local vegetables, and heard about Pike's Peak State Park, just ahead in MacGregor, WI. The confluence of the Wisconsin River and the Mississippi River. This is where the high bluffs really begin. About 400,000 years ago, when this part of the continent was an ocean, layers of sand were laid down. Millions of years later, when the ice age scraped some of those layers off, the limestone and dolomite cliffs were exposed. The limestone washed away, leaving caves and caverns, which turned into mining interests in current time. The visual result is bluffs over the river, with very wide flood plains creating what is called 'braided rivers'. A braided river is pretty danged healthy, and the Corps of Engineers has seen the results of damming and un-braiding rivers. This is a seriously condensed history! But, I'm getting ahead of the story of the river. Lt. Zebulon Pike, the same man who named the famous Pikes Peak farther west, was one of the first Europeans to see this magnificent view, and this little known bluff is named for him. Of course, Native Americans had been living here for almost 6,000 years.
While we were at Pike's Peak State Park, having lunch, this man rode in on this home-made motorcycle. You KNOW I had to ask him about it! The motor and rear chassis is a 1962 VW Beetle. The front tire forks are twisted wrought iron, the transmission....I forget all the details, but it was a cool bike!
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