Last Thursday I went up to the big city to see a doctor.  Well that didn't turn out so well but I got some nice photos.

This is driving on the ridge between the river valley where I live to the Mississippi River valley where the hospital is located.  I love the sun breaking through the fog.

Once I was finished with my appointment and lunch, I went up to a place in La Crosse called Grandad Bluff.  It is the largest bluff overlooking the city of La Crosse and the Mississippi.

This is the view from the city and the second photo is a zoom of the large flag on top where the park is located.  I love that place.  I actually think it is one of my favorite places to be.  I used to do a lot of thinking there when I was in high school and also there was a certain someone who heard a marriage proposal from me up there.

I love the long drive up the bluff.  Last year during all the massive rainfalls, this road was shut down because there were numerous areas washed out.

This is the view but not quite at the park.  The water you see is the Mississippi. So you are looking at Wisconsin and Iowa.

This was posted on the park shelter.  La Crosse is often called the coulee region because of all the small valleys that were carved out by glaciers.  It is also called God's Country.  In fact when Old Style beer was brewed in La Crosse, the cans and bottles said "Brewed in God's Country".  Grandad Bluff was originally a place of worship for the first settlers of the area.

This is just some random shopping centers and a high school.

That is the bluff across from Grandad Bluff, not sure what is called but in the coulee between you can see houses.

Looking up this way we can see some of the marshland between La Crosse and Onalaska as well as the Mississippi.  Up this way you see Wisconsin and Minnesota.

This is the new football stadium at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse as well as some of the campus' buildings.

I couldn't get the whole city of La Crosse in a single shot.

There is a golf course that lies below the bluff.  Can you make out the pin?  How about the golfers?

There is that island and I can't remember if it is French Island or another.  But French Island was where the first settlers made all the French live because they didn't want them anywhere near them.

The large building in the front is the hospital where I went as well as another university connected with the hospital.  In the back you can see the Mississippi.

The first picture is the actual lookout and the other is one of the original lookouts.  I couldn't walk down to the edge of the bluff.

They had the path blocked off because they were doing work.  I wanted to walk over and get a photo of the guy who was rappelling to make sure all the rocks were secure.

This is underneath the flag on the highest point on the bluff.

Sadly the night before I was on the bluff an area teenager died.  Of course she and her boyfriend were stupid enough to venture outside the fences.  Read this from the Chicago Tribune...all the papers around here are very depressing about the whole thing.

Back over the ridge but now the fog had cleared.

And then I got stuck behind this monstrosity.