We celebrated our anniversary ...

... on May 13th. We have been married for 12 years now.

Each year we try to plan a fun family day. After all, why celebrate an anniversary without the children!? We chose to visit Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin for the day.

Our first stop was the Visitor's Center. It is a very nice facility! They have several historical markers outdoors. Located on the riverbank between Iowa and Wisconsin, they have provided a free telescope for scanning the wildlife and river. We were able to view four snowy egrets sitting in a tree together. One took flight while we were watching. We learned from the staff that there were some free activities that evening, so I called my brother to mention it to him.

We crossed the river into Iowa to locate a visitor's center. We found it on the right side of the road in Marquette. We picked up some information for the area and headed for the Bat Cave.

The Bat Cave is our name for a little DNR station near Pikes Peak State Park. (By the way, all state parks in Iowa are free. Pikes Peak is a particularly beautiful spot.) A cave carved in the rock many years ago is supposed to house sleeping/hibernating bats. We didn't stop because there were quite a few official vehicles parked there. We assumed they were having some sort of meeting.

By this time we were all pretty hungry. We have a favorite restaurant in Prairie du Chien and had agreed beforehand that we would have lunch there. Huckleberry's has excellent food and good prices. We enjoyed a liesurely lunch with good service.

The waitress was using some sort of PDA to take our order. She said that the kitchen received our order immediately. She didn't even have to take it to them. Neat! Our ticket was printed out instead of handwritten. No more bill confusion due to the hurried handwriting of a waitress. She used it quickly and efficiently with no apparent confusion.

After lunch we crossed back into Iowa to visit the Effigy Mounds National Park in Harper's Ferry. We were greeted by a very helpful gentleman who turned on an informational movie for us. We then visited the museum and did some hands-on activities with the kids. The mounds are accesible via a long, steep trail. One mound, though, is located right outside the center. We are planning to return in two weeks to walk the trail.

At this point we returned to the Bat Cave and the office was open! We peered into the cave but couldn't see any sleeping bats. Inside the center, we saw several large mounted birds including an eagle, osprey and swan. A gentleman asked us if we had any questions. I asked how many bats use the cave. He blushed and admitted that it had seldom been used by bats. They were trying to find out why the bats avoided the cave. Their current theory is that there is too much airflow. They have blocked some air entry points. Perhaps next Spring we will return to see if it worked.

As we left, my brother arrived with his wife and two children! I don't know how they found us! We told them about the free acitivity at Fort Crawford that evening and agreed to meet them there.

We had heard about a Children's Ranch that offered horseback rides and education. We weren't sure if it was for "at-risk youth" or open to the public. We called and the lady said we were welcome to drive up and look around. We did so, and saw a few horses. We may contact them for more information at a later date.

We decided to locate Fort Crawford ahead of time so we wouldn't be late that evening. We headed to St. Feriole Island, the home of Villa Louis and Fort Crawford. (We hope to visit Villa Louis in the future.) We found one building that looked like it might be part of a former Fort, but it was not really accessible (no walkways) and didn't look like they were preparing anything for the evening. Mr. Hillocks walked over to the Villa Louis information/ticket center and asked a few questions. It turned out we had, in fact, found Fort Crawford. However, this was the FIRST Fort Crawford and we wanted the SECOND Fort Crawford. We were given directions and were able to find the right place. Mr. Hillocks verified that there was a free activity there (saving us the Family entry fee of $12) to the two museums located on the property.

Because we had such trouble finding the right Fort, we set out to locate my brother to make sure he could find it. He had said he was headed for Cabela's and since he has a reputation of shopping for looooong periods of time in that store, we thought we might find him there. And we did.

We left with a comfortable amount of time to reach the Museum. (Please visit that link for lots of information on the Fort, Jefferson Davis, members of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Dr. Beaumont, Alexis St. Martin and the surrender of Chief BlackHawk following the Battle of Bad Axe.) Our time at the two museums was very interesting and enjoyable. We have six children between my brother and I. There was only one other child present. It is unfortunate that more families didn't know about this free opportunity.

We intend to return for a Rendezvous later this year. Prairie du Chien is so rich in history that I'm sure we will have lots to study and do on future visits.

I'm not sure what time we left Fort Crawford (we had arrived at 5:45) but we were all very hungry from all the activities and fresh air! We decided to split the cost of supper at Pizza Hut. After a long drive home I was thankful I had laid out pajamas for everyone.