Day 14 Anamosa, Iowa

Boy! Am I happy to get on Wi-Fi at the Anamosa library. I was afraid I had goofed up my internet access somehow. But here the signal is good and strong and I had minimal trouble getting connected.

Right after I wrote my last blog in Sparta, I exited the library and saw this little old museum across the street and I took a look. Well, they had a history room and lo-and-behold they had the information on microfilm that I had wanted from the county office. So having completed my need to be in Sparta, I decided to go on to Platteville. I cancelled my campsite reservation, called Bruce back and told him I'd see him in a week or two, and drove to Platteville. I'm not sure I made a change for the better. Very small town in spite of U. of Wisconsin having a college there. The library was NOT open on Sunday and the college looked dead with no one around. BUT I had a neat parking place right behind the UCC manse. Perfect! Off the street so it was not right under a streetlight, one block from the police station. I parked there both nights. No campsites in the area.

On Sunday I read a lot, walked all around the campus, sat in the park and learned the main routes around town. It served me well because yesterday morning, I got up and went directly to the college welcome center, where they were more than happy to help me look up information about Agnes Jean Douglass who taught there, from 1926 to 1947, it turns out. When I finished there, I drove directly to Anamosa, Iowa, an even smaller town, but it has a State Park and I got myself registered there. Saw two deer browsing just across the road from my campsite this morning.

Today has been one of the prettiest days lately and, of course, I spent the whole day in the courthouse looking at old records. I found the original marriage license of my great grandfather Chester L. Lee to Addie Johnston in 1886, along with lots of other info.

Illinois had corn 8 feet tall, Wisconsin had shorter corn and lots of corncribs and elevators and lakes, Iowa has acres and acres of corn, as far as you can see in some places. Leaving Wisconsin yesterday I saw lots of strip-cropped hillsides, just beautiful. Hard to take a picture when you're on the highway.