Some times you just need to escape the rat race of life and find a place where you can remind yourself of who you are.
This morning we set out for a long weekend in my new Beetle TDI Convertible. With the roads clear from the week’s storms and temps too low to snow forecasted, we wanted to see how well the Beetle can do on the open roads. Per the car’s calculations, we are averaging about 38 mpgs.
The morning was quite cool. At one point we saw –13* F on the car thermometer. Our first stop was near Trempealeau, WI. We walked over the first four bridges on McGilvray Seven Bridges Road which is part of the Van Loon Wildlife Refuge Truss Bridge Group. The snow had been packed with enough footprints that we didn’t need our snow shoes and with the cold temperatures we had the trails to ourselves.
After that we headed to Pizza Corral in Trempealeau. We ordered a pan cheese pizza that had a really good crust, a tangy sauce, and more cheese than you can imagine.
From there we went to Winona and visited the Minnesota Marine Art Museum which was a surprisingly interesting art gallery. It has a lot of artwork for being a fairly small art gallery with art from some big names (Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Cezzane, etc.) along with showcasing three current artists from different area states. One of my favorites was a piece called Trempealau River Valley by Julie Crozier. The movement of the rushing river, swaying grasses in the wind, slow moving clouds, etc. really drew my eyes to the piece.
Tonight we are staying at the TownePlace Suites Marriott in Rochester, MN and so before dinner with friends we checked into our deluxe room. It has a full kitchen, living room with fireplace, bedroom with separate flat screen TV, and bathroom. As I type this blog I sit in front of the fire sipping herbal tea. Here are a few pictures:
We ended the evening with an enjoyable dinner with Diane and Dale, friends from our Twin Cities days.
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