Minnesota / Wisconsin, Part 2 - Stillwater, and Completing the Laura Ingalls Wilder Trifecta in Pepin [240628]

Today we finished our journey down the St. Croix river, bouncing back and forth between two states, ending at what was once a Little House in the Big Woods.

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As we used the dump station on our way out of Interstate State Park Friday morning, the mosquitoes were still relentless. We were very glad to (hopefully) be leaving them behind.

We drove 29 miles south to the city of Stillwater - "The Birthplace of Minnesota".

Stillwater is supposed to have a nice little park that runs along the St. Croix River. Here's a photo we found online that shows what it usually looks like:

When we arrived, though, the park was closed off with barriers: or more accurately, barriers were set up to keep you from trying to get where the park is supposed to be. Recent rains had caused the St. Croix to overflow its banks, completely submerging most of the park.

They moved this photo prop from the park before the floods, but its current location is less than ideal - or level.

We spent a couple of hours browsing the cute little shops in the historic downtown area. One of our favorite stores (which we surprisingly ended up with no photos of) was the Stillwater Olive Oil Co. - where we spent an inordinate amount of time sampling practically every olive oil and balsamic vinegar they sold, finally leaving with a large bottle of their White Raspberry Balsamic (Bacon Olive Oil was a close second place candidate 😉).

The Candyland store caught our eye because it had a number of large Peanuts character statues outside, reminiscent of the Peanuts sculptures scattered around Tom's childhood home town.

On the way back to the T42 we decided to stop by the only public restroom in town, which was in Teddy Bear Park.

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From Stillwater, we drove another 48 miles southeast - crossing over into Wisconsin for most of the trip, before crossing back into Minnesota again near the end - to the trailhead for Barn Bluff in Red Wing. Along the way we saw more examples of massive flooding in the Mississippi River, after the St. Croix emptied into it.

As it turns out, the loop trail that goes up and around Barn Bluff is rather long (close to 3 miles) and steep in places ("portions of the trail on the north side of Barn Bluff are strung with stabilizing cable for hikers to hold as they traverse the trail") and with the recent rains we decided it'd be too slippery and/or muddy to be worthwhile attempting. So after having lunch in the parking lot, we continued onward.

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Driving 26 miles east brought us back into Wisconsin . . .

. . . specifically to a re-created log cabin marking the "Little House in the Big Woods" where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born (about 7.5 miles north of Pepin). Visiting Rocky Ridge Farm (described in Missouri, Part 1 - Missouri Rocks! (and a Little House) [240413-15]) was always part of our original itinerary, and was supposed to be our one and only LIW-related stop on this trek. But as we finalized our route through South Dakota and realized how close we were traveling to De Smet, we couldn't resist making the little detour to visit that site as well (described in South Dakota, Part 8 - Continuing on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Tour, and Corn Murals [240525]). Having now visited the places at "the end" and "the middle" of the story, it seemed silly not to make the effort to complete the trifecta and visit "the beginning" as well.

The cabin was fun to walk around, even though it wasn't an "original" artifact like at the other two sites.

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Another 78 miles southeast - past a lock and dam on the Mississippi . . .

. . . brought us to the Pizza Ranch in La Crosse. What exactly is "Pizza Ranch"? We didn't know either, when we started seeing them a little while back, but a web search showed that they were a chain of pizza buffet restaurants. Their menu sounded vaguely intriguing and we put them on our list of "places to try one day" - and today was the day. Their savory pizzas were fine (Texan Taco perhaps being the standout), but their fried chicken and dessert pizzas (blueberry, peach, apple, and "cactus") and cookie were REALLY good (some might say too good 😉). One particularly nice feature is that if don't see your favorite pizza (from the menu) out on the buffet already, you can ask to have it made and they'll page you when its ready and give you the first few slices from it before the rest is put out on the buffet. We left there quite stuffed.

There even was a small arcade in the back, bringing back fond childhood memories of Chuck E Cheese's. Particularly amusing was the modern (if you call Minecraft "modern") take on the old "Frogger" classic.

Another 7.3 miles south brought us to the Walmart (#11, for those keeping track) where we'd be staying the night (along with quite a few other travelers).