Decorah, Iowa

June 4, 2025

Rick has been noticeably more relaxed this year while driving compared with last year. Not having to be on high alert for low bridges, high population centers, and narrow twisting roads makes for a more mellow driving experience. That being said, Rick is grateful for the truck's lane reminder system that gently reminds him to pay a bit more attention when he drifts too far from center.

As you can see, the crossroads of northeast Iowa is not a busy intersection

Our next destination of Decorah, Iowa was a very pleasant place to visit. Our campground was conveniently located right at the edge of a quintessential small town surrounded by interesting bluffs and rolling farmland.

A raccoon came for a visit in broad daylight

Cute little library in the shape of a trailer

We were only at this location for three days (including our arrival day), and one of those days was rainy, so that left only one day to see everything. Since the town was small, we figured that wouldn't be too hard to do. We started off that one sunny (and smoke-free) day with a bike ride along an 11-mile paved loop encircling the town.

The paved bike trail was in great condition

Plenty of hills on this trail--glad we had ebikes!

These lilacs were highly fragrant

It doesn't show up in this picture, but it felt like we were riding through a snowstorm of cottonwood seeds. We had to be sure to keep our mouths closed!

Interrupting our day was the discovery that our shower faucet was leaking. Rick took it apart and thought that one of the gaskets was leaking. So, we headed to the local hardware store, and not finding exactly what we wanted (the faucet had all metric components), we settled on some o-rings that might work.

Downtown Decorah

Unfortunately, after Rick had re-assembled the faucet, we discovered that the leak was actually caused by a crack in the pipe, and not a leaky gasket after all. Well, how do we fix that, you might ask? With epoxy of course! And, wouldn't you know, Rick has a collection of every epoxy ever created (that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by too much).

This should do the trick!

This is the crack that somehow went unnoticed

The "fix"

Julie was not thoroughly impressed with the aesthetics of "the fix", but she has learned flexibility in our unconventional lifestyle. So, while the epoxy was curing, we decided to resume our exploration of Decorah. We headed to the nearby Dunning's Spring Park where there was supposedly a waterfall. We weren't expecting much from a waterfall in Iowa, so we were quite surprised to find an actual, bona fide waterfall of pretty significant height.

A charming home along the path to the waterfall

Julie probably should have included Rick in this picture as a "prop" to show the scale. It was a pretty substantial waterfall.

We walked up a path that took us to the top of the waterfall

The source of the waterfall was this spring, about 200 ft high from the base of the waterfall

We went up another steep path to an overlook

Once again, we were pleasantly surprised by the view

The view from the bluff of the town reminded Julie of Stowe, Vermont. In fact, she liked Decorah better than Stowe because it wasn't overrun with tourists and Airbnb's. Decorah still felt like a real town that real people lived in.

Back home, we discovered "the fix" wasn't a fix after all because after re-attaching everything, the epoxy adhesion failed and the leak returned. No worries--Amazon came to the rescue, and a new faucet was promptly ordered, to be delivered to our next destination in Sioux Falls, SD.

In the end, one day really wasn't enough time to see everything that Decorah and the surrounding area had to offer. Perhaps one day we will return.

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