A Fun Day in Galena

First off, I saw that I had a visitor from Elyria, Ohio. Many years ago I lost track of a very dear friend who lived in Elyria, Ohio. Is it too much to ask that the visitor from Elyria might just be my long lost friend, Patti Kovach? And if it is you Patti, come back and let me know. If it is not Patti, then thank you for stopping and come back and visit often and again.

There now I am done with that.

Yesterday was a beautiful winter day. John and I decided to take a little road trip adventure to Galena, Illinois. The first time we saw Galena was back when Courtney was at Knox and we discovered this charming little town on one of our scenic rides home from Galesburg. The first time I saw Galena, I could not believe the way the houses and buildings are all built up into the hills. It amazed me. I had never seen anything like that before. Upon seeing Galena again yesterday, I didn't get that initial amazing feeling because I guess I knew what to expect, but as we walked up the many, many steps to the different levels of the town, I was still in awe of the way that town is built. We enjoyed a nice, long walk around the town crossing the Galena River on the cute little footbridges that they have built. It is so hard to capture the way the town is built with a camera, but you can see a few of the levels on this photo, I think.

Here is just one of the staircases that lead up to the different levels. I am standing about midway up these stairs. It was definitely a good thigh workout. We also decided it is not a town in which we would want to go bike riding.

This is one of the many cannons on display in Grant Park which is across the River from the downtown area.

These are the big flood gates that need to be closed when the Galena River reaches flood stage and threatens to go up over the dikes on both sides of the river. These gates enclose the downtown area. John is showing us how you would push them to close them.

And finally, here is a statue of Grant, who spent some time in Galena during his lifetime with John imitating the pose.

We traveled in three states on our little adventure. Wisconsin, of course, Illinois and then on our way home, we crossed the Mississippi River going into Iowa. Ended up in Lake Mills at Blue Moon for pizza and beers.

It was indeed a fun day!