Special Places To Visit: LeClaire Iowa

   Curt, a friend of mine, was picking my brain on places I traveled out west. After answering several questions another friend of mine, Karen, said I should create a blog of the places I visited as my stories made her want to visit the places.  I thought well I had a blog and since I am in the middle of the Corona Virus social distancing, why not. So this is the first of my entries that will be entitled "Special Places To Visit".

   One of the bright spots of traveling west is getting out of Indiana and Illinois as quickly as possible.  Not that I don't like those states but I have lived in Indiana and visited Illinois often and heading west lets me see other places for a change.  I am grateful to get into Iowa and I know what you are thinking "Iowa!" Yes crossing the Mississippi gives me a thrill as I know I can get gas and rest a little while in LeClaire Iowa.

The first time we visited we only wanted to see American Pickers, as they were headquartered there.  But, we found that LeClaire is a very nice and interesting place.  After visiting the American Pickers store, which we found interesting but too expensive for hard working middle class Americans.

We walked around the town.  There is something special about a town sitting on the river and LeClaire sits on a good one.  The Mississippi river is only a stones throw from the main drag of the town.  We walked along the street and entered several very nice shoppes and had pizza at a very fine place called Happy Joe's Pizza and Ice Cream.

After having a pizza we continued to explore the town and found out that Buffalo Bill Cody spent some time in LeClaire and they created a museum to learn more. The museum was very nice and as added bonus was connected to a real paddle wheel museum.

 

You can spend quite a bit of time looking over the Buffalo Bill Cody items as well as looking over and walking through the Lonestar Steamer.  Both histories are fascinating and LeClaire is doing a great job keeping their histories alive and well.

Before leaving the town we spent sometime just sitting and watching the river.  LeClaire provides several places to just sit and watch the river.  Talking to one of the locals we discovered that once a year the town has a celebration and part of that celebration is having a tug of war contest with the Illinois town opposite LeClaire on the Mississippi.  They have a rope strung across the river and have a tug of war with several ages of combatants. There seems to be a lot of pride when LeClaire can come out on top and pull the Illinois participants into the river.

All in all I would highly recommend LeClaire Iowa as a place to stop for a short time or a few days.