Day 6-7, La Crosse, WI

Monday September 8 was the first driving day. We embarked on a 140 mile journey north of La Crosse along the Mississippi River. We began on the Minnesota (west) side of the river and crossed back about 40 miles north of town. From there we travelled a series of obscure farm roads through severe hills along the eastern side of the Mississippi. We were treated to occasional glimpses of the river through breaks in the trees and hillsides.

This continued for miles until we reached Elmer's Toy Museum. Elmer made his fortune in the auto salvage business, and poured all of it into collecting things. Mostly toys for children and adults. He has a vast automobile collection, including several cars he bought new and never drove. For example, he has a 69 or 70 Corvette with only 5 miles on it. Most of the cars are of the 60's and 70's muscle car variety, all in excellent condition and quite valuable today. This is a fairly secret museum. It is well off of main roads and there is little effort or interest in generating traffic through it.

The toy collection is astonishing, there are thousands of collectible toys from the early 1900's on, many with their original boxes. It would take months to simply list what was there. What we saw occupied several large barns. Elmer pointed out there were many other toys in storage. He must not have had any toys as a child.

We had great coffee, cookies and moved on, still wondering about what we had seen.

After a lunch at a War Memorial Park pavilion in Arcadia, WI, we went on to see the Brush Wildlife Museum. This consisted of stuffed trophy animals placed in a huge diorama. All the animals captured by the Brushs with bow and arrow only. Their catch included big animals like rhino, elephant, and tiger. This reminded me of the Bolack museum in Farmington.

On the way home the La Salle front wheel bearing was getting louder. I tried to locate a replacement locally, but did not have much luck. I decided to have bearings shipped from my usual parts supplier in California via next day air. I learned they would not come until Wednesday.

We started on the tour Wednesday, this time south of La Crosse on the Wisconsin side of the river. A highlight was an antique tool store with very inexpensive tools for sale. I almost bought an original Lufkin micrometer for $32. This a very good price for this. Instead, I got a Brown and Sharpe surface dial gauge tester for just $28. There was a feeding frenzy for the car guys in this store, they must have sold hundreds of items in just a few minutes.

Unfortunately, as we continued toward Pierre du Chien, the wheel bearing started to howl disturbingly. I was afraid if we continued there might be damage to the spindle. This would be very hard to repair. We called for the AAA tow truck. In a half hour, Bob the friendly towperson arrived and quickly returned us to our hotel. We took a nap, did laundry, and let La Salle sit and wait for her part to arrive.