The Dakota Discovery Museum tells the story of people who came to the northern Plains. The past is preserved here which helps inform the current in habitants. Art and artifacts are combined and presented to tell the story of this region in a way that contributes to building the future of the people of the Dakotas.
W.P. Franklin
W.P. Franklin is a small Army Corps of Engineer (COE) park located just northeast of Ft Myers in Florida. COE parks are usually located near water features (lakes and rivers) and usually have some great camping spots at great prices. As can be imagined, they are quite popular and often difficult to get in. I stayed at this location in 2021 and didn’t have any problems reserving a site for 9 days. This year (2022), I couldn’t get in. It has been hard to reserve a spot nearly everywhere I’ve looked especially over a weekend.
W.P. Franklin is a lock and dam feature located on the Caloosahatchee River. It has 29 RV sites and 8 boat sites. The campground is almost completely surrounded by the Caloosahatchee River with just a narrow stretch of land connecting it to the shore. The Caloosahatchee River is part of the 152 mile Okeechobee Waterway that spans South Florida from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
Hot Springs or Hot Views?
Hot Springs National Park is in the middle of Hot Springs, Arkansas! There are several historic buildings (hot springs bathhouses and the park headquarters) located in the downtown area. Visiting in the fall is guaranteed to leave you speachless at all the colors in the downtown and surrounding areas.
A few images from the downtown area:
More views of the surrounding hills:
Dogwood Canyon
Dogwood Canyon is dedicated to preserving the natural landscape and plant life of the area. It has many hiking trails including a nearly 6-mile trail that is paved and can be used with bicycles. It crosses cold, flowing streams stocked with trout. Fishing is allowed at certain times and locations and lessons are available for those folks, especially the little ones, who have never been fishing for trout before.
You can take an hour-long trail ride on horseback which showcases areas of the park through the eyes of early European settlers and Native Americans to the area. Meandering through old logging roads and ridges located on the 10,000-acre property will make you feel like an early explorer. A longer ride called the Little Indian Lunch Ride, is a two-and-a-half hour tour tnat includes a stop for lunch.
The park also includes a fully-functioning mill, restaurant, conservation center, bike barn, a treehouse built by Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters and a horse stable facility.
Table Rock Lake and Dam
I didn’t get to explore Table Rock Lake in any great depth but I did spend a little time around the dam. There are a lot of really interesting places to explore around the lake which I hope to do next time I’m in the area. In the mean time, here’s a few random photos I managed to capture from the area:
The “Grandaddy”: Bass Pro Shop in Springfield, Missouri
The “Grandaddy of all outdoor stores” as it is billed, this Bass Pro store in Springfield, Missouri has it all, and then some. From the Hemingway’s Blue Water Café, National Archery Hall of Fame, National Rifle Association Sporting Arms Museum, John A. and Genny Morris Conservation Education Center, White River Conference Center, and of course, the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium is a massive facility and is a full-day experience if you include taking time to visit the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium. If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, this is a must visit experience.
The only thing left to do is share some of the images I managed to capture here. The museum and especially the aquarium has really low lighting so plan accordingly if you expect to take quality photos here. Beware – lots of images follow:
Buffalo Bill Museum – In Iowa?
William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, was best known for his exploits as a frontiersman and Army Scout and later as a showman participating in popular tours all throughout the United States and Europe. What few people realize however, including myself, was that Buffalo Bill was born in LeClaire, Iowa! He didn’t spend much time in Iowa however as his family moved to Ontario for William’s early years.
The museum is a showcase of early life in the LeClair’s history and features many of the prominent people who were born and lived there. Of course, Buffalo Bill is the most infamous.
Of course you can’t talk about Buffalo Bill without a hat tip to Annie Oakley!
Because LeClaire is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, you can’t leave out the influence of the riverboats.
A few miles south of the museum is the “famous” lock and dam #14. People from all over the world come to this location in the winter to photograph eagles. Most of the lakes and streams further north freeze during the winter forcing the eagles to migrate farther south for food. Since eagles love fish, the open water that is usually found behind dams provides ample opportunities for snapping up stunned fish as they pass through the dams. I was there in 2014 and saw close to 100 eagles around the dam area.
On the small island where the picknic tables and the radio towers are were two trees that the eagles liked to sit in to watch over the water, wait for the next fishing opportunity, eat their recent catch, and just hang out. Several years ago these trees succumed to Dutch Elm disease and had to be removed. Large “man-made perches” were erected for the eagles to land on.
Effigy Mounds National Monument
Effigy Mounds National Monument preserves many examples of pre-contact American Indian mounds that provide visitors with the opportunity to see remarkable evidence of the Woodland period American Indian mound building culture. This National Monument was established in 1949 and is located in Harpers Ferry, Iowa.
The visitor’s center was closed when I was there (COVID you know) and the weather was mostly low clouds, mist and rain so I didn’t get a chance to hike to most of the more interesting mounds. The trails were clean, well maintained, and easy to walk on. The initial section of the trail from the visitor’s center is a fairly steep 350-ft climb up the side of the bluff but fairly easy going past that.
As you start out you’ll pass by three mounds located next to the visitor’s center before you start the 350-ft climb to the top of the bluff.
The whole story about the mounds located here is rather interesting. This is how it’s described on the National Park Services web site:
The 2,526 acre Monument preserves more than 200 mounds, including 31 in the form of bear and bird effigies. People known as the Woodland Indians built the mounds. The Woodland Culture, which dates from 500 B.C. to about 1200 A.D., is broken down further into three different sub-cultures: the Early Woodland (also called the Red Ochre), the Hopewellian classified as Middle Woodland, and the Effigy or Late Woodland. Between 800 and 1,600 years ago, in the Late Woodland period, American Indians began building earthen effigy mounds in the shapes of mammals, birds, and reptiles.
The hunter-gatherer culture that built these mounds thrived on the rich natural resources of the Mississippi waters, wetlands, and forests. They lived in large campsites along the river in the summer and found refuge under limestone rock outcrops in northeast Iowa in the winter. They survived by eating fresh water mussels, wild rice, nuts, fruits, and berries, and by hunting white-tailed deer, bear, bison, turkey, and waterfowl. On the two mile round-trip walk on the Yellow River Bridge Trail, visitors at the Monument can explore a wetland similar to the ones that Indians in northeastern Iowa depended on for survival.
Why these mounds were constructed remains a mystery. Archeologists and researchers hypothesize that some of the mounds were built for religious ceremonies, burial ceremonies, as clan symbols, or possibly as a way to connect people to their ancient ancestors and the spiritual world. Visitors to the Monument can view examples of the four different types of earthen mounds in this area as well as four different types of burial methods used throughout the Woodland period.
Conical mounds are the oldest and most numerous in the area. A conical mound is round, dome-shaped and usually about 10 to 20 feet across and two to eight feet high. Conical mounds were often used as burial mounds. A second mound type is the linear style: these mounds were two to four feet high, six to eight feet across, and were up to 100 feet long. Sometimes referred to as “cigar shaped,” these elongated mounds are often classified as ceremonial mounds and are generally absent of burial materials. The compound style was a combination of the conical and linear styles. These mounds look like a string of beads, where the conical domes are connected by the linear mounds. Like the conical mounds, the compound mounds were often used as burial mounds. Linear and compound mounds are only found in the Effigy Mounds Region. The mounds are accessible from the hiking trails in the Monument. Fire Point Trail is a two mile round-trip hike where visitors can view over 20 mounds, including all four types: conical, linear, compound, and an effigy.
During the late Woodland period from 400 AD to 1200 AD, effigy mounds began to appear. Effigy mounds (“effigy” meaning in the shape of) are found in various mammal, bird, and reptile shapes. Bear and bird effigy mounds dominate the Effigy Mounds National Monument. The effigy mound is both a burial and a ceremonial mound; however, its main use appears to be ceremonial. Only about 20 to 25 percent of them contain any burial material. One of the largest effigies visitors can see is the Great Bear Mound, which is 137 feet long and 70 feet wide. Great Bear Mound is about a two mile round-trip walk from the visitor center.
The four different burial methods were not particular to a specific mound style. Evidence of different burial methods has been uncovered within a single mound. The most common style was the bundle burial. In this style, human remains were left outside until most of the flesh was gone, and then the bones were bundled together with a piece of string and placed in a shallow rectangular pit. Sometimes these bundles contained the bones of many individuals. The other styles include cremation, the flexed burial, and the extended burial. In the cremation burial, ash and charred bone fragments were collected and placed inside the mound. In flexed burials, the body was in a sitting or fetal position, and in extended burials, the body was laid out flat. Trails throughout the Monument allow visitors to view mounds with evidence of these burial styles.
More images from the area:
Pikes Peak State Park
Colorado isn’t the only state with a Pikes Peak! But it does have a common explorer.
Pikes Peak State Park just south of McGregor, Iowa along the banks of the Mississippi River follows the bluff south of town. It is named for Zebulon Pike, the same explorer that has another peak honoring him in Colorado. The park boasts numerous overlooks and nineteen miles of scenic hiking trails through the woodland, prairie and oak savanna. Two of the most popular trails are the half-mile trail to Bridal Veil Falls and the Point Ann trail overlooking the nearby town of McGregor.
Here are a few of the images and informational signs that showcase the park:
Dock Dogs in Dubuque Iowa
What in the heck is/are Dock Dogs? In short, it’s the “track and field” of dog competition. According to their web site:
DockDogs was born in 2000 to create a nationally recognized competitive sport based on rules and precedents in Track and Field competitions. Much of DockDogs Big Air Dog competitions’ popularity comes from having national standards and objective measures that allow people to train competitively and have objective feedback on their progress.
It’s the “how high can you jump” (aka Extreme Vertical), “how far can you jump” (aka Big Vertical), and “how fast can you retrieve the target”, (aka Speed Retrieve). It was fun to watch and, at least at the event in Dubuque, Iowa, it was free for spectators! Here’s a few short videos to show the action:
I spent my last year in college (before the military) at the University of Dubuque and rode this little gem several times. It’s a fun little cog railway in the middle of town and it’s free, or at least it was way back when. Didn’t have time to ride it this trip.
Here are a few more images from the downtown area. I wanted to visit the riverfront museum but it was too pricy for only a couple of hours. Tickets are good for two days but we were leaving the next day.
That’s all for now until I get the images from our next destination uploaded here for everyone.