Walking Tour

This morning I took a 90-minute walking tour of La Crosse from our apartment to downtown and back. Today was the best day for such a walk because it was the first day with the high in the 70s and the last day with no thunderstorms in the forecast for the next week.

At 9:30am, I left our apartment for the south branch of the La Crosse Public Library. I walked east on Green Bay Street to 16th Street. That 10-minute stretch was partially residential and partially light industrial, and reminded me of my many walks in Kenosha. By the way, I had shade for nearly the entire walk downtown as this city is very green.

From Green Bay Street, I turned left and headed north on 16th Street. The library was only a few blocks up. Unfortunately it was closed, scheduled to open a little later today. I didn't take a close look at their hours, but the either opened at 10am or 12pm, depending on the day. We just went to the library earlier this week, so there was no need for me to wait around.

I intended to walk back home from the library but I was surprised that it only took 15-20 minutes to get there, and I still wanted to walk. After walking one block towards our apartment, I remembered the university's address being on the 1700 block of State Street, basically a straight walk north from here. So on 15th Street, I decided to head north.

Between Farnam Street and State Street, the houses looked nicer and nicer. This walk was the most pleasant and only took about 30 minutes. I passed by a park, a rummage sale, and a couple of mansions. The greenery was also thicker on this walk too, reflecting the well aged neighborhood. No, I didn't bring the camera, but I saw the house that's pictured here. I uploaded from a web page of another resident.

I reached State Street and walked east a couple blocks to my campus. It is still summer vacation and most of the faculty was gone, but some students and administrators lingered around. Most people there were maintenance workers. I got to the 3rd floor of the main building to stop in at my office. As I took out my keys to unlock my door, I realized that my office keys were in my office bag at home. No office visit, but I could still use one of the many university restrooms.

As I was leaving campus, I decided that I should follow State Street east downtown. There I could find our credit union, the city bus terminal, the post office, and the pet store. The university is on 17th and State and downtown starts on 7th Street, so it was only 10 blocks or 15 minutes to get there. The walk on State Street mostly consisted of housing for students and and some light commercial buildings. It felt a little bit like a miniature Madison there.

When I reached downtown, I managed to find everything except the pet store. It was supposed to be at the corner of Main Street and 4th Street, but I found a vacated store which may have been it. Oh well. So I continued walking south through downtown on 4th Street. The best thing on 4th Street is Fayze's with its wonderful breakfasts. We haven't had breakfast there since we visited La Crosse with my mom nearly 2 months ago. A few weeks ago, we ate dinner there with Nicole. Their breakfasts are better!

Once I had downtown behind me, I turned left on Division Street in order to walk through the residential sections of 6th Street. On Sunday, I walked down 5th Street which was shadier than 4th Street, but wasn't so nice compared to the rest of La Crosse. 6th Street was an improvement upon 5th Street, but not as nice as the 15th Street walk. I passed by a couple of parks and churches.

6th Street ends at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital where 7th Street converges with 4th Street to become South Avenue. 5th and 6th Streets just end there. The rest of the walk provided little shade, but I was only a few blocks from home. I walked south on South Avenue passing the hospital on both sides of me, crossing Green Bay Street again, and came to the 2100 block of South Avenue, our apartment just beyond a very big parking lot for the hospital.

Before coming home, I made a pit stop at our mailbox to find our corrected checkbook and checks in the mail...and our cellphones! What a rewarding day, and it's only 12:30pm as I finish this posting.