2025-08-30 – Scenic View Campground, IA
After grabbing breakfast at MacDonald’s we headed north and across the Mississippi to make a stop in Dubuque, IA. We first headed to see the city’s shot tower where lead shot was made for guns. Molten lead was poured through a sieve at the top of the tower. The droplets become perfect spheres as they fall and cool and solidify when they land in a tank of water at the bottom of the tower. Built in 1856, Dubuque’s tower sits in what is now a sort of blighted area at the edge of an industrial area and rail yard.
What we didn’t expect was how nice the adjacent waterfront along the levee would be. “Mississippi Riverwalk” was a beautifully landscaped multiuse trail on top of the levee. The area behind the levee area was home to a new convention center, a resort and water park and the Stone Cliff Winery.
The winery was housed in the former Dubuque Star Beer building. Fittingly, the building contained wonderful displays documenting the history of the former brewery. Built in 1858, it is one of the oldest brewery buildings in Iowa. It also had prominent supporting roles in the 1979 movie, “F.I.S.T”, and 1980’s movie, “Take This Job and Shove It”.
Dubuque is another city built along steep bluffs above the river. And what’s a steep hillside without a funicular? J. K. Graves, a local banker, lived on top of the bluffs and worked at the bottom. He built the original inclined elevator to save himself the half hour horse and buggy ride around the end of the bluff to get between his home and work. Eventually it was enlarged and made available to the public and it operates today as the Fenelon Place Elevator Company. $4.00 cash gets you a round trip ride and we took it.
Downtown we stopped for pizza and drinks at the Dimensional Brewing Co. Nice place, it was open to the street with an industrial vibe. The pizza was good but we couldn’t begin to finish it. Oh well, makings for a “leftover” meal!
We didn’t realize that our destination, Scenic View Campground “in” Waterville, IA, was serviced only by dusty gravel roads; like six miles of gravel, far from any town! Our RV, and especially our car in tow, got extremely dusty. The campground, itself, was nice. There were two sections of it on either side of a small river. But Bill’s first order of business after we got set up was to bring out his leaf blower to remove most of the dust from our vehicles.
Dinner that evening was a robust salad and some of Sandy’s trademark egg and olive spread.
2025-08-31 – Scenic View Campground, IA
Not much in the “adventure” category today.
Laundry beckons to be attended to every couple of weeks. Since this campground had an OK facilitiy, Sandy gathered together our collection of quarters and busied herself with that. Meanwhile, Bill wrote and edited pictures for the blog.
Later in the afternoon we spent time comparing camping and travel notes with our campground neighbors, Carol and Nixon, who live not too far away in Des Moines.
Dinner was leftover pizza from yesterday’s lunch in Dubuque.