Our first full day in Dubuque on this trip was almost a washout. Literally! We got up to a full on thunderstorm that lasted until early afternoon. It was time to do a little housekeeping, so we vacuumed and dusted and such. The rain was beating on the roof so hard that we couldn’t hear the vacuum! Midafternoon the storm took off to bother someone else, so we went into West Dubuque for an early dinner.
The Dubuque Mining Company took care of us very nicely!
Donna ordered a “kinda rueben”, which added pastrami to the burger.
And I went with the traditional mushroom version…
Sunday morning was much the same as Saturday. Heavy rain early.
But then it quit raining, so we jumped into the truck, looking for something different to do. Winding north through farmland, our first destination was the Balltown Overlook. On the way, we had an up close and personal visit with some extraordinarily beautiful farmland.
At the overlook, just a mile or so from the 100 resident hamlet of Balltown, we stopped to take a deep breath. You can smell corn growing!
Thats the Mississippi River in the far distance.
We soon found a part of the Great River Road that we hadn’t seen before, so off we went!
Near Turkey River, we found a sidelight that sounded interesting. Off we went two miles down a well maintained dirt road.
And we found the Cassville Ferry!
This ferry, which runs seven days a week, is the only available river crossing for miles, and has been used off and on for years. Here’s the story:
The journey takes about 20 minutes to cross a narrow channel in the Mississippi, and we had a chance to talk to some fellow travelers who had come north to escape Floridas summer heat.
Our landing was at a city park in Cassville, Wisconsin. We stopped for a look around.
Cassville is a cute little town with several restaurants and, inevitably, a dozen bars! We were getting hungry, but decided to head back south on the Wisconsin Great River Road, eventually crossing Ole Miss back into Dubuque.
We couldn’t wait any longer to eat, so…
Catfish Charlies restaurant is right on the river, and serves a spectacular variety of dishes, from ribeye steaks to oysters. Donna enjoyed a seafood platter and said it was great.
N’awlins style Jambalaya was more to my liking, and yes, it was wonderful!
Just about half of those dishes came home with us, so we’ll have some good eats at out next stop tomorrow!
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