More Great River Road kitsch

Dickeyville is a small town along the Great River Road. From 1925 to 1930, Father Matthais Wernerus, a Catholic Priest of the local Parish, began constructing stone works dedicated to his two favorite American ideals – love of God and love of Country.

As his materials, Father Matthais used stone, mortar and glass to build the “grotto” of shrines to both ideals. He did not create plans or blueprints, but visualized and created as he went. He used whatever materials in addition that caught his fancy. Some of the materials used included exotic shells, gems, fossils, petrified sea urchins, quartz, agate, onyx, petrified wood and moss.

While in many ways, this was garish. But it was a fun stop along our way, and we are glad we took time to see it.

Savanna Illinois was a biker town. There were not a great many attractions there, beside the Mississippi Palisades State Park where we spent a couple nights. The Park allegedly had wonderful hiking trails with overlooks of the Mississippi River Valley from the palisades, and we did hike them one of the days. But the weather was hot and muggy – approaching 100% humidity – and the mosquitoes were thick. There were more mosquitoes here than we encountered in Alaska, which is said to have the worst mosquito swarming of anywhere on the North American continent. So, after checking off one of the hikes, we decided that one was just fine!

In downtown Savanna we found the subject of one of the History Channels popular programs, American Pickers. Frank Fritz Finds is an antique store that shares space with one of the biker bars in town. I strolled through the place and checked out all the interesting old stuff. As expected, I found a set of Franciscan China – my mom had a complete set of Franciscan China in the Apple Pattern – this set was in the Rose Pattern, but I can pretty much always guarantee an antique store will have some of one or the other – or maybe both patterns on their shelves.

We were stunned by all the bikes (Harleys mostly) that were in town the weekend we were there. They lined the streets in front of the biker bars, particularly the Iron Horse Social Club. In the old days, an Iron Horse was a steam locomotive. But in the current parlance, it’s a Harley – maybe an Indian would count as well, but not a Honda or Suzuki.

We figured out what all the bikes were doing in town when we say this banner. Apparently those not wealthy enough to ride all the way to South Dakota came to Savanna for this weekend!

In Moline Illinois, we visited the HQ for John Deere. Despite the fact that state fairs no longer have machinery hills with acres of John Deere agricultural equipment on display, apparently the economy for Ag equipment is still strong, and Deere is doing well. The visitor center was impressive, and we really got to see a great show – much like being on machinery hill when I was a young’un.

My favorite part of the Deere Pavilion was the drone tractor exhibit. Not only do we have drone aircraft chasing after the Taliban and ISIL fighters, but we have drone tractors doing the dangerous work. These tractors are pre-programmable with field dimensions and such. And for applications, such as pesticide spraying in orchards where otherwise a human pilot would be exposed to the toxic material, the drone can handle it easily with no human exposure to danger. The drone tractors carry live digital cameras so that if a remote pilot wants to see what the drone is up to, he or she can do so at the flip of a switch.

My absolute favorite though had to be the drone lawnmower. Looking a little bit like a Roomba self-guiding vacuum cleaner, the John Deere drone lawnmower can be set to actually trim your yard daily so that your grass is always at the ideal height for growth and health. Time for the mowing can be preset, and when the drone returns to its docking bay, it is automatically recharged so it is ready for its next romp. Pretty much fun!

The Triple A baseball team in Davenport, the River Bandits, have a stadium right on the banks of the Mississippi. Not only do they seem to have all the niceties that many Triple A teams have to excite and draw in the local crowds, but these guys also have a full-fledged Ferris wheel! What a fun way to catch part of the game!

 

Talk to you soon!