My Memorial Day weekend trip

Last weekend, my family went to Decorah, IA. Since we were going east anyway, I suggested we go to Barb's Memorial Day sale, that was really cool, I got to see Sally and Jethro, and the Rabbit Hole and so many other cool things there. We got to my grandma's house Saturday night, and continued north on Sunday morning. Before getting to Decorah, we visited the World's Smallest Church:

 It only seats 8 people. It was pretty cool, there were some beautiful stained glass windows inside and a small graveyard in the back
Once we got to Decorah, we had some time to kill before we checked into the hotel, so we had a nice lunch at a Norwegian restaurant where my dad had to order some luefsa, that was interesting. We walked up and down the main street, and then went to see the 200 foot waterfall at Dunning's Spring Park:

That little kid in the red, walked down the whole thing, I kept waiting for him to slip and slide down, but he never did, thankfully. Mom and I walked up to the top of the waterfall (on steps), that was a neat view down.
And the Fish Hatchery:

Not really an exciting place, but I love how a bunch of the adults were showing their childern to "pet" the fish, even though there was a sign, saying "Please don't touch the fish", way to set a good example, parents.
And the giant eagle's nest at the Fish Hatchery:

That would have been more interesting if we could see the eagles, you can see one of the adults in my picture. The nest was about 80 feet up in the air, this was as zoomed in as my camera went, I'm surprised I actually found it in my camera, that was tough.
By this time, it was time to check in and figure out supper, we went to a local hang-out called T-Bocks, I had a mushroom burger and a root beer, we also got to enjoy some local music.
We also wandered through historic downtown Decorah, where we found a very cool rock fence, I took 119 pictures of it:

I love rocks, I could have spent all night looking at this fence/wall, very cool.
 And this neat park:

The park, we just happened upon, it was really neat, as I had seen a photo from early 1900's with this walkway in it, and said I wanted to see it. The right half of the picture looks out over a river, I have some great pictures of that. By the time we had walked around the park, we were ready to go back to the hotel.
The next morning we had a very sad breakfast at the hotel and headed out early to see The Seed Saver's Exchange:

It wasn't as cool as I thought it was, there were mostly two gardens, one with veggies, the other with flowers, I was hoping for more gardens. I did buy some nice postcards and stickers.
Next we headed to Fort Atkinson:

this was an old fort to keep two Indian tribes from harming each other, it was mostly ruins, and because it was Memorial Day, the museum in the old barracks wasn't open.
The next stop was about 40 minutes out, we picked up a lunch of fried chicken close to it, and headed down the road to the Motor Mill

This mill is on the Turkey River, it never really picked up in business and finally closed. It's called the Motor Mill because the guy who built it was trying to build a town around it called Motor. In the 90's, half of the bridge was washed out in a flood, and then in 2008, another flood washed out the other half.
Supper that night was at Albert's in the historic Winnieshiek Hotel, that was too much. I had grilled rosemary shrimp, which came with soup, and rolls. I had seen the dessert plate before we started eating, so I ordered dessert too, we all went to bed very full.
I thought Albert's was a little upper scale, but as we were waiting for our food, I found out it wasn't. There was a lady who decided she couldn't eat with her shoes on, and I have to say staring at someone's feet does not help my appetite.
Tuesday, we checked out a few shops in downtown Decorah, and then headed home.

It was a very fun trip.