DAY THIRTY-THREE -July 27, 2017 - The Party's Over

After checking out of our hotel in La Crosse, we visited Riverside Park on the Mississippi.

The city of La Crosse has a nice feel to it (maybe because it is a Democratic bastion) and was named because it was the site of native Lacrosse games.  The park has a statue of Hiawatha but no information is given as to why.  Hiawatha was instrumental in the formation of the Six Nations Confederacy over 500 years ago.

There is also a sculpture of an Eagle in the park.  The sculptor has other art around the downtown but we didn't investigate those.

We saw an old phenomenon today - a plank road.  Haven't seen one of those since Mardi was a kid in Hagersville (had to say that - I have no sense of fear - although many feel I could have stopped that sentence after the word "sense").

The area is very boggy in many places and they use heavy equipment to install their large transmission poles.  The planks are laid quickly we are told and are removed afterwards so Mother Nature can rehabilitate the area.  The planks in the picture below have been removed in the front of this picture but are still in place on the next hill.

The last pictures of this blog are for Ewen.  He and I discovered Culvers, the home of the ButterBurger, on our return trip from the Grand Canyon.  Awesome burgs!  Inexpensive too, and Culvers are located all over the place in Wisconsin and Illinois.

After lunch we ignored the GPS and took I-39 and I-80 around Chicago to avoid the highway gridlock.  We also crossed at Port Huron/Sarnia because I hate the Detroit crossing.  Those two decisions added an hour or so to our time (our theoretical time -I'm sure the Chicago traffic would have cost us at least that much extra time) and we crossed at 10:30 p.m., an hour and a half before my out-of-province health insurance deadline.  Arrived home at 1:30 a.m. and slept in this morning.

We had a really great trip (even Mardi says so).  Saw just about everything on our list and many things that should have been on the list.

By the numbers:
33 days
4 time zones
15,543 kilometres driving
50 hours floating
5 provinces, including Ontario
1 territory
11 states
4 times entering and leaving the U.S.
10 entries into B.C. - mainly because the Alaska Highway zig zags       over the Yukon/B.C. border seven times.
8 entries into the Yukon
3 entries into Alaska
2 visits with good friends
0 arguments

To those of you who have ridden along with us on this trip, I hope the blog has been interesting and entertaining.  It has taken from one hour to three hours each day, depending upon internet speed, but it is my photo album for future reference so it's been fun to produce.

Till next time.