2025 Trip One: Mississippi River

March 30, 2025 Reads Landing,MN

Just a brief wrapup post to complete the blog for trip one. Saturday was not quite as rainy as we expected so we did go down to do some recreational shopping in Wabasha Minnesota. Wabasha is the home of the National Eagle Center, but we had been there before. We just walked the streets of the downtown and a little bit of the river.

We returned to the River Nest bed-and-breakfast for several hours of reading and relaxing. Then we headed out to church in Wabasha and then had dinner at a local bar. All in all, not a lot to report.

What we did want to post are a series of pictures showing the elaborate and delicious breakfast meal provided at the River Nest. It starts with danish and juice at 8 AM. We enjoy this sitting in front of the windows in our room, watching the river and whatever birds, boats, and trains we might see. At 9 AM we go out to the dining room and have breakfast. This starts with a first course of yogurt and cut fruit. The main entrée varies. On Saturday it was crème brûlée French toast with sausage. After that, you have breakfast dessert. Saturday was Swedish cream and raspberry compote. You leave the table not planning on having lunch.

I have included a picture of another one of the tows that we saw from our room. The one we saw last night was not particularly visible in a picture, except for the search light used to help guide the tow and barges. I did not go outside to get a picture of the Empire Builder. Our views of that were pretty much head on and so only showed one or two cars. I didn’t feel like going out in the rain to get an angledshot of the entire train from engine till the end.

Today we just had breakfast, packed up, and headed for home. This ended our first trip. We believe the uncertainties have been conquered. The planning for additional and longer trips in the future will now begin.

Ed and and Chris March 30th.