Crossing the mighty Mississippi in Wisconsin

Saturday 8 to Sunday 9 August

Our next destination was Chicago – too far for a day’s drive from Murdo in South Dakota. We had no desire to visit Minneapolis – just the sound of the city’s name was daunting. Instead we followed the I90 to La Crosse in Winsconsin where we would cross the mighty Mississippi River. It was a 500 mile (800km) drive.

Bruce had picked out a craft brewery in La Crosse – it was a long walk along streets with poor or no footpaths. When we got there it was closed – seemed like we had found the factory not the beer hall.

My preference to eat near the Mississippi River won at the end of the day, and we had a very nice meal at the 4 Sisters Wine bar.

On Sunday we had a short drive into Chicago and time to enjoy the countryside.

We stopped off at the Frank Lloyd Wright factory built for AD German in Richland Centre.

Richland Centre was Wright’s hometown and the factory was designed to repay a debt to wholesale grocer Albert Dell German. The cost overran from as estimated $30,000 to $125,000 and construction was stopped after 4 years construction in 1921. It was the only factory built by Wright that is still standing.

AD German was able to use the unfinished building to store sugar, flour, coffee, tobacco and other things until 1927, but he eventually lost the building.

Today it is being renovated and only open for viewing on Sundays, so we were fortunate to tour the building. Surprisingly there were few other visitors. We had become used to queues at most tourist attractions in the USA. Perhaps this one, described in Atlas Obscura is obsure.

We arrived in to visit more Frank Lloyd Wright homes.