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Another World

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Have you been on so many vacations that you've seen it all?

The Venice canals? Been there. Big Ben? Been there, too. The Great Wall of China? Of course.

And you're upset because whatever the language, the golden arches are always the same? It's time to try another world, not merely another country.

Such a world exists beneath the bluffs of the Upper Mississippi River from Rock Island up to St. Paul, Minnesota.

Come on down!

Leave the interstates and the cornfields of the prairie, descend to the base of the bluffs, and follow the Great River Road through a hundred towns like Guttenburg, Lansing, LaCrosse, McGregor, Reads Landing, and Winona. Falling into the ways of this country, you can stay at hotels with six rooms, each with its own cat to curl up with, shop duty free at five and ten cent stores with wooden floors, darkened by daily cleanings with oiled sawdust, and eat your big meal at noon for $2.69 without arches.

Evenings, wander over to a waterside bar over a bait shop, and listen to the talk. Sample a native brew.  Don't let strange names like Potosi Select and Leinenkugel put you off.

Better yet, rent a houseboat at a marina and sail into a haunting and watery world of channels and islands—hundreds of them stretching off from the main navigation channel. Near Winona, Minnesota, the Mississippi widens to more than a mile. Here you can disappear into the maze, find your own island, and not see another human for a week. You will sleep as you have not since you left your cradle, rocked by the gentle current and waves.

It beats Brigadoon. Mornings on your own island, as the fog slowly raises the curtain on this country, you are apt to see blue herons in the shallows, or whole flocks of white egrets in the willows. Take your time. Watch the turtles climb onto logs to sun themselves. Fish, if you must, but there is really nothing you must do here.

A word of warning. Some of us who long ago descended into this world have lost our way and are still here.

But we're not calling for help.

Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.

Community
Beginning 1995, historian and folklorist Dr. Roald Tweet spun his stories of the Mississippi Valley to a devoted audience on WVIK. Dr. Tweet published three books as well as numerous literary articles and recorded segments of "Rock Island Lines." His inspiration was that "kidney-shaped limestone island plunked down in the middle of the Mississippi River," a logical site for a storyteller like Dr. Tweet.