La Crosse, WI Part II

Pamela and I needed to leave the park to take her to a lunch.  Pamela had already come up with a lot of ideas of things for me to do while she was having lunch with the ladies.  I ended up finding a bunch of things to do on my own.  While we were walking out of the park we took some more scenic pictures.

Before we left the park we spotted a really cool canon that had been captured from the Spanish and was being used as a memorial to the Maine.  Pamela and wondered about the historical connection the area had with the Spanish American War.   I decided to look into it at the museum.  The answer, a WI senator from the area wanted it and got the War Department to loan it to the town.  The town has to give it back if the War Department needs it.

After I dropped Pamela off for lunch I decided to check out the museum only to be side tracked by a friendship garden which side tracked me into a nature hike.  Eventually I did end up in the museum...

I was very surprised to discover this in Riverside Park.  The Chinese Dragons next to the museum made me very curious.  This International Garden was put in the park by a local International School.  Each area of the garden represents partner cities that the school has.  This area is the only Asian area that I found.  All the other gardens were for European cities.  It was really cool to see what they had come up with for each area of the world.

After exploring this part of the garden I moved into the German area.

Before moving on into Ireland I stopped at a really pretty gazebo and took a moment to admire the River.

I was very excited to find the Irish portion of the garden.  Pamela and her mother have Irish heritage and being there made me think of them.

After spotting a bird I went over to the French portion of the garden.

The Norwegian area seemed to have gotten special attention since many people in the area have ancestors from there.  I love the old Norse myths and stories, this was my favorite place in the Friendship Garden.

My nature hike started with a bridge where some people were fishing.  From there I went on some paths where people were camping and eventually I ended up in the city and found my way past the restaurant where we would have our Rehearsal Dinner and back into Riverside Park to go to the museum.

The Freight Train was a very good restaurant!  Yummy!

The museum was very cool.  A lot of it focused on the ancient people of the area and on mound building societies that called Wisconsin home.  It also talked about the town founders, the button industry and it focused a lot on the War Eagle, a ship that sank in La Crosse.

After I walked through the museum I got a call from Pamela saying that her lunch had ended early and she needed me to come and pick her up.  It was time for us to get ready for the Rehearsal and dinner.

The church was amazing.  I spent most of my time admiring the architecture.

Afterward we went out to dinner and had a fun time.