We’re staying at Pikes Peak State Park outside of McGregor in the northeast corner of the state, and yes, the same man who named the peak in Colorado named the peak in Iowa.
The park overlooks the Mississippi River from the high bluffs as the Wisconsin River empties into it.
We tracked down the local CVB in McGregor but only found an open door and brochures— no one to talk to. The problem was that we didn’t even know what county were in so weren’t sure what brochures to look at. A couple of doors down was the Little Switzerland Inn, and Betsy who owned the inn and was in the ice cream parlor, was a fount of information. She even loaned us history books of the town.
McGregor took off in the mid-1800s when lumber was flowing down the river and grain needed to be moved. At this point, McGregor was larger and more prosperous than Chicago! Now McGregor is smaller than Pierre du Chien across the Mississippi River.
We really liked our campground but don’t have internet so have to find spots to connect as we’re out and about. The overnight fee here is only $11 a night, so we’re going to stay here for almost a week and take day trips. We’ll add more pictures of the park later in our trip. Like many in the RV parks where we’ve stayed, most campers are local folks who come out for the weekend rather than passing through to somewhere else.
Here’s a sign we saw in the park that we hadn’t seen before.
