June 19, 2019 Wednesday Day 31
We ate our breakfast of fruit and yogurt in the apartment and then headed off for the Ice Age Trail with 35 miles of electricity. As we drove through Taylors Falls we noticed a very small public library in a wood frame building. Almost every small town has a public library. We were unable to visit the historic Folsom House since it was closed during our visit. We also passed the oldest public school building in Minnesota, built in 1852.
We crossed the St. Croix River on the two lane, very high bridge and almost immediately took a left turn into historic St. Croix. For a small town, population 2133, which is more than twice that of Taylors Falls, St Croix Falls has a pretty long and prosperous looking main street. It is at the center of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway and is the western terminus for the 50 mile Gandy Dancer state trail and the state spanning Ice Age Trail .
The Riverway, I did not know that we had National Scenic riverways, stretches from the highlands of northern Wisconsin and central Minnesota to the river's junction with the Mississippi River, a 235 mile river reserve. It was one of the original rivers designated as a wild river in 1968. It was long used by the Ojibwe tribe as a water link between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes and during the 17th and 18th centuries used by the French voyageurs who explored the region and traded for beaver furs. In the 19th century the river served as a passageway for logs from the logging camps in the North Woods to the mills downstream.
Traveling to the River Visitor Center we passed through an area of well maintained, large homes with lots of mature leafy trees on the outside of town. The Visitor Center overlooked the river and offered a movie about the river. All the Rangers were in a staff meeting so we helped ourselves to some materials and drove further north to the beginning of the Ice Age Trail. The last Ice Age glaciers about 10.000 years ago had their southern edges across Wisconsin. The advancing ice was split into six major lobes by the topography. Beginning in 1958 efforts began to establish a park/trail that preserved the remains of Wisconsin's glacial history. By 1980 the state and federal governments established a National scenic Trail that meandered 1200 miles across Wisconsin stretching from
Green Bay to St. Croix Falls which roughly outlined the southern most progress of the last glaciers.
We enjoyed a very pleasant, shaded 1.2 mile walk on a trail that was either soft or planked. We encountered very few people among the trail's greenery and river overlooks. When the trail crossed the road to begin its eastward journey we turned around and drove back into town. We stopped off at the modern library, seemingly the only structure in town built in this century. It was well stocked and had a lot of people in it.
Driving east out of downtown we ate lunch at Wayne's Cafe in the new, strip mall part of town on highway 8. We missed the all you can eat fish fry on Friday and could not take advantage of the Wednesday post 5:00 $3 burgers. We ate big plates of various comfort foods. The milkshake was very good. It almost seemed as if this was a community center with lots of people conversing and discussing business.
We then went to the Wisconsin part of the Interstate Sate Park on the east side of the river. Walked and hiked around on the rocks and bluffs above the river and the Dallas and took a hike around a lake which had a small beach.
The Interstate Park had its origins in a 1860s proposal by a businessman to mine the basalt that comprised the Dalles to make gravel. That galvanized protectionists to lobby the Minnesota and Wisconsin legislatures to create a park. Minnesota acted first in 1895 and Wisconsin followed in 1900 creating its first state park. That marked the end of the logging era, but the park is now covered with second growth forest.
The Wisconsin Park visitor center had a 24 minute film that traced the Ice Age trail and explained the geographic formations created by the glaciers: striations resulting from boulders scraping bedrock, drumlins are elongated hills resulting from materials deposited by the glaciers in the direction that the glacier was moving, moraines are deposited materials at the front edge of the glacier (Long Island where I grew up is a terminal moraine), and kettles and eskers are geographic formations formed by streams flowing over or under the glaciers. They created a diverse landscape with many lakes (more than Minnesota) and rolling land. The park has rocks from three geological eras about 500 million years ago. The infrastructure in the Park was largely created by the CCC during the depression.
After our hikes we returned to the food market to pick up some lunch, dinner and electric charging. We drove back to the BnB with just enough electricity to avoid gasoline and cooked a chicken and veggie dinner. Watched a colorful sunset.
We ate our breakfast of fruit and yogurt in the apartment and then headed off for the Ice Age Trail with 35 miles of electricity. As we drove through Taylors Falls we noticed a very small public library in a wood frame building. Almost every small town has a public library. We were unable to visit the historic Folsom House since it was closed during our visit. We also passed the oldest public school building in Minnesota, built in 1852.
We crossed the St. Croix River on the two lane, very high bridge and almost immediately took a left turn into historic St. Croix. For a small town, population 2133, which is more than twice that of Taylors Falls, St Croix Falls has a pretty long and prosperous looking main street. It is at the center of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway and is the western terminus for the 50 mile Gandy Dancer state trail and the state spanning Ice Age Trail .
The Riverway, I did not know that we had National Scenic riverways, stretches from the highlands of northern Wisconsin and central Minnesota to the river's junction with the Mississippi River, a 235 mile river reserve. It was one of the original rivers designated as a wild river in 1968. It was long used by the Ojibwe tribe as a water link between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes and during the 17th and 18th centuries used by the French voyageurs who explored the region and traded for beaver furs. In the 19th century the river served as a passageway for logs from the logging camps in the North Woods to the mills downstream.
Traveling to the River Visitor Center we passed through an area of well maintained, large homes with lots of mature leafy trees on the outside of town. The Visitor Center overlooked the river and offered a movie about the river. All the Rangers were in a staff meeting so we helped ourselves to some materials and drove further north to the beginning of the Ice Age Trail. The last Ice Age glaciers about 10.000 years ago had their southern edges across Wisconsin. The advancing ice was split into six major lobes by the topography. Beginning in 1958 efforts began to establish a park/trail that preserved the remains of Wisconsin's glacial history. By 1980 the state and federal governments established a National scenic Trail that meandered 1200 miles across Wisconsin stretching from
Green Bay to St. Croix Falls which roughly outlined the southern most progress of the last glaciers.
We enjoyed a very pleasant, shaded 1.2 mile walk on a trail that was either soft or planked. We encountered very few people among the trail's greenery and river overlooks. When the trail crossed the road to begin its eastward journey we turned around and drove back into town. We stopped off at the modern library, seemingly the only structure in town built in this century. It was well stocked and had a lot of people in it.
Driving east out of downtown we ate lunch at Wayne's Cafe in the new, strip mall part of town on highway 8. We missed the all you can eat fish fry on Friday and could not take advantage of the Wednesday post 5:00 $3 burgers. We ate big plates of various comfort foods. The milkshake was very good. It almost seemed as if this was a community center with lots of people conversing and discussing business.
We then went to the Wisconsin part of the Interstate Sate Park on the east side of the river. Walked and hiked around on the rocks and bluffs above the river and the Dallas and took a hike around a lake which had a small beach.
The Interstate Park had its origins in a 1860s proposal by a businessman to mine the basalt that comprised the Dalles to make gravel. That galvanized protectionists to lobby the Minnesota and Wisconsin legislatures to create a park. Minnesota acted first in 1895 and Wisconsin followed in 1900 creating its first state park. That marked the end of the logging era, but the park is now covered with second growth forest.
The Wisconsin Park visitor center had a 24 minute film that traced the Ice Age trail and explained the geographic formations created by the glaciers: striations resulting from boulders scraping bedrock, drumlins are elongated hills resulting from materials deposited by the glaciers in the direction that the glacier was moving, moraines are deposited materials at the front edge of the glacier (Long Island where I grew up is a terminal moraine), and kettles and eskers are geographic formations formed by streams flowing over or under the glaciers. They created a diverse landscape with many lakes (more than Minnesota) and rolling land. The park has rocks from three geological eras about 500 million years ago. The infrastructure in the Park was largely created by the CCC during the depression.
After our hikes we returned to the food market to pick up some lunch, dinner and electric charging. We drove back to the BnB with just enough electricity to avoid gasoline and cooked a chicken and veggie dinner. Watched a colorful sunset.
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