Road Trip

Anyone familiar with southeastern Minnesota would know this landmark. It's known as Sugarloaf and sits on the edge of Winona, MN, the town where my mom spent some of her childhood years. I'd been promising her a visit back there all summer, and with a glorious late September weekend ahead of us, we headed off. If you'd like a sampling of the sights we saw, read on. The only fibery content in this post is the edible kind.

First we paid our respects to the relatives. The ones living in town--here she is with her brother, my Uncle Stan.
And, those only living in our memories. If you ever happen to be driving past this town, I highly recommend taking a small detour near the center to check out this place. It's the best bakery in the whole wide world!
And, a shot of some of the goodies. These are even better than those at the Dixie Cream Donut shop we used to have in my hometown.
Winona is a beautiful community scattered with churches, each with more unusual architecture than the next. Some of the most unusual include the Central Methodist church which has a towering tall steeple with little tiny windows at the very top and one which has parapet's and looks like a castle. But, my favorite is St. Stan's.
This white dome can be seen from the road as you drive the river road towards the town. It also has incredible stained glass windows and pink and white marble inside. Oh, and the stonework carvings inside are fabulous.

We paid a visit to the Watkins Museum and shop. Great fun and good to stock up for all that winter baking.
Watkins vanilla is the only brand I'll use.

The Farmer's Market was great fun, too.
Unlike the one in my town where vendors have a little of everything, several of these growers specialized in just one thing. This lady had scads of different kinds of potatoes, another had more different types of peppers than I've ever seen.
So, that was alot of fun to explore.

On the way home we stopped at La Crescent, located just on the MN side of La Crosse. Why? Apples!
It's apple time around here and Bauer's is the place to get them. We bought Jonathon's, Empire, and Honey Crisp and tried samples of lots of other varieties.
Plus, they had Kohlrabi fit for...well, for a giant!
That's the foot of my in progress sock, for scale.

We spotted this beautiful paddleboat taking a trip down the Mississippi as we crossed the river back into WI. Hope you enjoyed the sights as much as we did.