Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Food
M
Pier 4 Café & Smokehouse
(600 N. Main St., 608/685-4923, 6am-2pm Wed.-Mon.,
$3-7) features straight-up simple café fare—creative enough to avoid eggs monotony—on
a screened-in porch, with river-lock views and lumbering freight trains whizzing by just a
fewfeetaway.It'sapersonalfavoritespotforuniqueatmosphereinthestate.Trythepotato
pancakes with an omelet stuffed with luscious smoked pork.
A little more upscale is
Kate & Gracie's
(215 N. Main St., 608/685-4505) down the
street; think tenderloins with roasted apples.
Themostsurrealculinaryexperience ontheGreatRiverRoadmaybeattheunderstated
eatery
onthe fishing float at Lock and Dam 4.This place is nofrills. It serves an enormous
omelet called The Mess (the name tells you how many ingredients it has); get it with
sauerkraut.
Buffalo City
Just off the road, Buffalo City was for a long time the smallest incorporated city in the Un-
ited States (now pop. 915). There's not much to do other than spend time in a host of
city
parks,
one of which contains the original 1861 jail, or wander riverside nature trails in a
10-acre wooded park.
Cochrane
Along the way from Buffalo City and onto Prairie Moon Road is another folk-art oddity.
The
Prairie Moon Museum and Sculpture Garden
(Prairie MoonRd.,608/687-9511,af-
ternoon Sun. May-Oct., free), a hodgepodge of human (or animal) concrete figurines and
a kind of folk-art stone wall, all created by a local artist. It was recently recognized as a
significant state cultural site by the philanthropic Kohler Foundation.
The local
high school
(608/687-4391) has a taxidermy display of local fauna, including
eagles and a rare albino deer from the surrounding hills.
Merrick State Park
North of Fountain City, the Mississippi River widens to almost two miles because of dam-
ming. Right along the
Whitman Dam State Wildlife Area
is one of the smaller—320
acres—state parks in the northwestern part of the state.
Merrick State Park
(888/
947-2757,
www.wisconsinstateparks.reserveamerica.com
, $10 daily admission, camping
reservationfee$10;non-residents$14andup/night)nonethelesshasprimewaterfrontprop-
