Visiting the Trails and the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa

Captions: 1. The front door of the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum (enter from the right side of the building). 2. A tree destroyed by a summer storm on the Prairie Farmer Trail between Ridgeway to Calmar, Iowa. 3. A bicyclist memorial in Calmar, Iowa. Jim Conzemius is in the background.

My husband Jim and I planned a weekend trip for August 25-27th to Decorah, Iowa, after discovering the town on RAGBRAI this summer. We were charmed by the city in Winneshiek County and by the wilds of nearby Dorchester in wild, even hillier, wooded Allamakee County. All I previously knew about Allamakee County was that that’s where the first emerald ash borer was discovered in Iowa, the emerald ash borer that infests and kills ash trees. I didn’t know how different the landscape of Allamakee County is from the other counties in Iowa.

On RAGBRAI, we stayed at the Sportsman’s Club, where there was no TV in the rooms and no WiFi. The little half-curtained window in the bathroom made it clear that there was no need for a full curtain. The woods were so dense it wouldn’t have surprised me if a Sasquatch had walked out of them.

A wooden bear with painted blue overalls peeped out among the trees in front of the Sportsman’s Club, a modest motel recently purchased by a young couple with small children. The family is from Texas, so depending on what part of Texas they’re from, you might say they got out in the nick of time in view of the devastation of Hurricane (now Tropical Storm) Harvey.

We came back and stayed at the Super 8, which cost twice as much per night as the Sportsman’s Club. It was a rip-off ($125 a night) in our estimation, but no other motel would even take our call. They were full. (Students were returning or coming to Luther College for the first time. Their parents and even grandparents often accompanied them.) Somebody’s building a new motel in Decorah, thank goodness, which might provide some competition.

Jim rode the Trout Run Trail in and around Decorah on Friday. He said it was hilly and challenging. I bowed out because of my sore right knee and went sightseeing instead. Before we went our separate ways, we visited the Seed Savers Exchange Barn, where we order our prairie flower seeds, and visited a colorful garden out back. Jim bought a jar of jam and I bought some milkweed seeds to seal up in a plastic ziplock bag to save for the spring. (Jim has two prairie patches in our yard for pollinators like monarch butterflies and bees.)

Then he biked the trail and I visited the Blue Heron Knittery. There were lots of different kinds of yarn, but I need to knit up the yarn I’ve already got first. I stopped at a little shop across the street from the Blue Heron Knittery and bought two pairs of earrings for not much money.

Then I had to get back to the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. I love that museum so much I became a member. There I met about 20 elderly people all speaking a foreign language on the third floor where the new Norwegian spoon exhibit had just been installed for viewing that day.

I asked, “Excuse me, please. What language are you speaking?”

An elderly woman responded, “Norwegian,” as if of course. What else would I be speaking?

I answered, “Welcome to America.”

For some reason, I felt it was important to let her know that I had not voted for Donald Trump. I guess I feel embarrassed to have him for our president. Her face twisted with the effort to say what she wanted to say. Finally, she said forcefully and succinctly, “I agree!”

The new collection was all wooden spoons with finely engraved Norse designs in the ladle part of the spoon. They were of different sizes and all hand carved. I admired the Norwegian lace, some of which was formed with small metal pins with white porcelain heads in a pattern with long wooden pins threaded with white thread. You weave the wooden pins in a certain pattern through the metal pins and that makes the lace! I'd never seen anything like it.

The next day we ventured out in the rain and rode on the Prairie Farmer Trail between Ridgeway and Calmar, Iowa. It was still raining a bit when we started but soon stopped as we rode past trees cracked in two by lightning. So many trees were so badly damaged that I stopped to notice. Some trees had brown leaves on them after earlier storms. Others were just as damaged but still had green leaves on them.

We asked the bartender at a bar in Calmar what happened, and he said, “Storm after storm! One right after another.”

The ten miles of trail between Ridgeway and Calmar would surely have been blocked with fallen trees without the good work and chainsaws of the Department of Natural Resources. All we encountered were a few smallish branches blown by the wind onto the trail here and there. If only everyone did as good a job cleaning up trails! We rode 21 miles round trip.

Years ago we met the citizens cleaning up the Wabash Trace Trail outside of Council Bluffs, and they said they were volunteers. They said they cleaned up the trail without any help. I believed them.

We enjoyed Decorah, the countryside, the museum, and the shops. It’s a beautiful place. Watch out for roadwork on the junctions of the major highways. Remember that road construction is everywhere this time of year, not just in Decorah.