Wisconsin…Dairy Capital of the US…Never saw a Cow!


King of the 2-lane highway…if we had traveled Interstate 90 and 94 today, we would have been to our destination in about 3 hours.  Instead it took us most of the day.  Minnesota showed us some diversity today…but not in its agriculture.  Once again, we traveled through cornfields and soybean fields until we got close to the Mississippi River.  Who knew the Mississippi was anywhere close to Minnesota…not us…again we are astounded at our ignorance of US geography!

Upon approaching the Mississippi things got hilly, trees appeared, and so did many small lakes, just like we had Minnesota pictured.  But before we knew it, we were in Wisconsin, another new state for us.  Wisconsin is the # 1 producer of milk in the US…not where we have been so far…we never saw a cow.  (Not quite true, we saw 3 really old Holsteins…maybe they had been taken in by some animal activist who thought that it was cruel to kill animals…who knows?)  We did see lots of hilly land growing corn though and farms with numerous poultry barns on them.  I am sure before we leave the state ‘dairy’ will make an appearance.

We are set up in the Hixton KOA.  Hixton is just off of Interstate 94.  It is in a mining area much too our surprise.  They are producing ‘fracking sand’.  They strip off the topsoil dig up the rock below and grind it down and produce a fine sand for fracking for the oil industry.  It is all going to North Dakota and Texas.  I guess it is rather controversial in the area but as the KOA owner told us, he does not blame the farmers for selling out because they are walking away with millions of dollars in their pockets.

Distance Traveled = 334 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Robin, White Pelicans, Bald Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, Kestrel, Mourning Dove, Goldfinch, Chipping Sparrow, House Sparrow, Cardinal, White Tailed Deer.


Rolling Hills of Minnesota


Farming the hills of Southwest Wisconsin


Dam on the Mississippi keeping water levels at 9 feet for Barge Transportation


Our last look at the Mississippi

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