A Different Look in the Living Room for Autumn

Taking a short break from doing the rest of the posts on copying HGTV's July/August 2019 magazine cover.

I wanted to do something different this year than I normally do to "decorate" my living room for autumn.  Over the years, I've added throw pillows here and there as well as throw pillow covers (which I first discovered at Ikea some years ago - I never knew such things were made before I found them there while looking at throw pillow designs).  I love them because they are typically much less expensive than buying a whole new pillow and I like the convenience of being able to remove a pillow cover to clean and iron it when needed. 

For my spring/autumn look this year you may recall that I went with pink - a totally new and somewhat adventurous look for me.  For the autumn look - which will be taken down and put away once we get into Christmas/winter decorating, which generally starts in my house the day or so after Thanksgiving - I opted for something new this year rather than going through my drawer of pillow covers and accessories to switch things up.

When I bought this house and moved in the first week of July in 2014, the walls of the living room were already painted a serene light greenish-gray color that I call celadon.  But celadon, as with all colors, often takes on a whole subtle and not-so-subtle range of colors depending upon the paint manufacturer, the materials used in upholstery, pillow covers, draperies, rugs, accessories, etc. 
For my new look this autumn season, I shopped around online for a couple pillow covers and ended up purchasing six, of which I used 4 to replace pink covers, etc. on the pillows on my tuxedo style sofa.  The two I decided not to use appear a little more "spring-like" to me, so I'll pull them out in the early spring when I rotate things out of my winter season look.  All other items used were from "shopping the house." 

Here are the new pillows:

The new editions (left side of sofa in this pic) are the white velvet with black velvet horse and trim pillow (I bought it online at H&M Home but now I can't find it) and khaki green slub-textured "crinkled cover" with a slight sheen looks sort of like raw silk, very pretty) - both 20" x 20" size.  My recollection is that I paid $19.99 for the black and white horse pillow, and the moss green cover was $3.99 on sale.  Zippered closings.

And on the right side of the sofa in this pic the new additions are a "dusky" green cotton velvet cover from H&M Home for $9.99 and a "beige" and black striped velvet with velvet piping cover for $17.99, both 20" x 20" size.  Zippered closings.

The over-rug for spring and summer along with the pink/gold toned abstract prints were removed for the season.  I found some green and teal, etc. colored abstract prints online that I clipped and printed out for my frames.

Sorry, it came out blurry.  The pic of the other two prints came out even more blurry so I deleted it!

I retired my double elephant lamp on the round table for the season and brought out my oldy but goody teal lamp.  It adds a deep jolt of color that compliments the paler tones of the celadon and various shades of greenish-grays used elsewhere in the room, and is ready for the cooler weather topped by a black shade.  I took care to rotate out the books on the built-in bookshelf to highlight the greens, teals, and blacks:

And changed out the accessories on top of the fireplace mantel,  The celedon colored Han Dynasty style horse was a pick-up some years ago at a TJMaxx when I was still working downtown.  It is normally on the built-in bookshelf shown above, part of my small horse "collection."  The decorative plate (highly glazed) is celadon and gold, also purchased some years ago at TJMaxx.   I kept my black and white crystal piece on display (that was purchased many years ago from a sort of Mother Earth/Nature store near where I worked downtown - I would go over at least once a month to see what new items they had in - you could buy beads there, all kinds of arts and crafts supplies and hand-crafted items of all sorts, including large pieces of furniture from India and other exotic locations), and pulled out some old pressed glass candle holders and black metal with silver candle toppers for a simple design. 

You can barely see him - a black stallion replaced my gold elephant at rest for the season on top of the tall curio cabinet in the left-hand corner - he's facing in the same direction as the horse on the black and white velvet pillow on the sofa and the celadon colored hose on the mantel is facing toward them. 

On the side table by the front entry (that's also my typing table during the winter, it can be pulled up close underneath furniture when I'm in the living room enjoying the fireplace) is one of my lanterns with a battery-operated candle inside, and two of my eggs from my collection normally kept in the large hutch.  Both have green tones.  You can sort of see the other two framed prints from the internet that I swapped out for the pink/gold prints that were up during the spring and summer.  The throw over the ottoman is a light-weight houndstooth patterned acrylic with fringe.  When it gets colder I'll swap it out for the black/gray/white large plaid wool throw. 

Earlier in the season when the Sun really got intense in the room when hanging in the west facing large picture window for hours every day, I added the black and white curtains on either side that offer more coverage than the white gathered sheers.  The sunshine is still bright during the afternoons/early evenings as the Sun sinks in the west, so the curtains still block a lot of the excess light that generates heat in the room, and this time of year they add an element of coziness without being "heavy" looking or blocking out too much light.

As you can see above, I still have not painted over that pea green "ragged" finish accent wall that was there when I bought the house.  Me bad - I've been looking at it for five years and every season I tell myself I'm going to paint it over with the celadon color.  Yeah.

I am very pleased with how everything came out.  Overall when I'm in this room it feels serene and cozy to me. 

HGTV Magazine July/August 2019 - Copy Our Cover, The Look for Less!

Hola, it's that time again, to challenge my online shopping skills to find the look for less.  Sometimes, I can't find a better price for the same or similar object I'm hunting, but that's not too often.

Here's the July/August 2019 HGTV Magazine cover:

And here's the "Copy Our Cover" page:

The HGTV items chosen total $1,556, broken down as follows:

Daybed from Ballard Designs:  $999 (with cushions)
Red Aluminum Side Table:  $296
Bicycle on Beach pillow:  $48
Aqua Knot pillow:  $47
U.S. Power Squadron flag:  $19
Oar:  $94
Anchor pillow: $53

So settle back on your comfy chair/sofa/daybed/porch swing/porch daybed and follow along!

The Porch Swinging Day Bed

Yes, it's day-bed size, not a typical porch swing that I equate more to the size of a swinging 2 or 3 seater bench.  The original is from lowcountryoriginals.com, and after closely scrutinizing the HGTV cover photo, I think it's the "Bed Swing with "X" Sides and Back," outer dimensions 88" x 44"; inner dimensions 76" x 41".  It comes in two different woods and a variety of different stains.  It is not indicated whether the bed cushions and bench seat are included, nor is the price indicated.  That means it's probably expensive :) 

I limited my selections to porch swing day beds.

HGTV's Ballard Designs pick (pictured above) was - I believe - the "Sunday Porch Swing" (with cushions) for $999, but at the time of writing this entry it was on sale for $749!  Although it isn't clear from the Specifications, I believe the outer dimensions are 65" x 32" and the inner dimensions (the "mattress size") are 59 1/2" x 29 5/8".  The dimensions are quite a bit smaller than the original, but probably more in keeping with the size of swing most people would buy for their porch.  It comes with a "deep cushion seat" (mattress), 3 back pillows and 2 bolsters, and in two finishes:  Graywash or Whitewash finished Eucalyptus wood. 

Below is the Belham Living Cottonwood Deep Seating 64" Porch Swing Bed with Cushion, $429 with free shipping (presently on sale for $420).  Only the seat cushion is included, it is gray with white piping.  The outer dimensions are 64" x 28", seat dimension is 60".  The finish is "driftwood." Made of Eucalyptus wood, with "X" crossed back pattern and slatted sides, I feel the design and the clean lines (although not the size) are closest to the original swinging day bed from Low Country Originals:

Even more budget-friendly, but a slightly more petite size, is also offered by Belham Living, its Chippendale Deep Seating Whitewashed Porch Swing Bed with Cushion (pictured below), currently offered at $237 with free shipping.  The bench cushion/mattress is included in the price (bolsters not included).  The dimensions are 63" Long by 30" Deep, whitewashed finish of Eucalyptus wood. 

The Red Side Table

First of all, I investigated the table on the cover, which was listed in the "Sources" pages from selamatdesigns.com.  Sure enough, I found the table, here's the link to the Regeant 4-Season Side Table in Antique Red.  It is powder-coated aluminum in "Antique Red."  Please note that at the time I am writing this blog entry, the "manufacturer's suggested retail price" is $158.  It's size is 19.5" Wide by 19.5" Deep x 21" High.

That means that for the IDENTICAL TABLE that HGTV found at the Well Appointed House website at $296, you would have paid almost twice the MSRP.  Nice mark-up!  And it got worse.  At Finelinens.com, the IDENTICAL TABLE was listed for $446.  I found prices exceeding $600, and none lower than $296 for the IDENTICAL TABLE.  Now I think that's just ridiculous. Why would anyone pay $296 or more for a table that was suggested to be sold at $158, and cost maybe half of that to be manufactured?

Do you think I could find a red aluminum side table to match the one in the HGTV cover?  Nope, I didn't.  But I figured I could find something in red metal (or could be spray-painted red if the size/shape/material were otherwise right), in a round shape, for less than HGTV's pick at $296.

Pictured below is the Mebane Metal Side Table by Wrought Studio (at Wayfair) in red, made of iron, dimensions 16.25" W x 16.25" D x 21" H, on sale for $54 with free shipping. 

How about two for less than the MSRP on the original side table?  They don't come in red, but spray paint doesn't cost much - 2 cans max in your choice of red rust-resistant outdoor paint (maybe $8) should do the trick.  Also found at Wayfair, pictured below are the Latitude Run Melway Metal Side Tables, the pair for $105 with free shipping.  Made of iron.  Dimensions:  Large given as 16.5" x 14.35" x 21" High, and the smaller table given as 14.25" x 12" x 20" High - but I don't think the height can be correct because it appears more than an inch shorter than the taller table in the photograph.  Plus:  They are six-sided (although not the seven sides of the original cover table) and you can put one on either side of the swing bed to hold beverages or a book/magazine. 

Continue on to Part 2 to see what I found for the oar and the pillows.

Temptingly Cute Finds at TJMaxx

Alas, my Greenfield, WI TJMaxx that was walking distance from my house is no more.  They moved their great store about 2 miles further south to a long vacant Sears "Home Life" stand-alone building on a main artery that stands on the outer boundary of a large shopping mall surrounded with smaller strip shopping centers, banks, chain restaurants and assorted independent businesses in stand-alone buildings. 

I have a balance on a TJMaxx gift card and decided to online shop for some accessories to compliment the moody celadon on my living room walls, hallway and back bedroom (which I use as my den/library/office) that looks either a very pale green or a very pale gray, depending on the light and time of day.  And of course rather than sticking to my primary purpose for going to TJMaxx online in the first place, I got distracted by lots of pretty things, like these:

 

Matceramica "Juliet" plates made in Portgugal, set of 4, glazed ceramic

dishwasher and microwave safe, 9" diameter. $19.99

(I have no idea what size "OS" is.)  I love the color and the details!

Love! Why does this throw pillow remind me of Boho/disco era shimmy dresses?

"Texture All Over Fringe Pillow" by Youtreasure in white multi, 20" x 20", $19.99.

This plant stand is made of iron handcrafted in India and would fit in with

all kinds of decorating styles.  Measures 23.75" tall x 15.5" wide x 8" deep, $29.99.

Cozy up for fall/winter with this just waiting to be hugged Enchante feather filled 

20" x 20" buffalo check throw pillow (cotton poly blend, spot clean only 

with zippered back) in red and black, $16.99.

Who doesn't love a treasure box (that's what I call them).  Handcarved in India, of 

white-washed wood, this hinged little gem measures in at 7.5" long x 4.5" high x 3" tall for $9.99.  

Now I'm going to go back to shopping for celadon accessories!  

Jif Peanut Butter Commercial - So Good You'd Dress Up Like a Squirrel for It

I love this!  Looks like my yard when I throw the hazelnuts morning and evening - but so far, no guys with a squirrel mask have shown up...

Milkweed and Driveway Garden

Hola!

Yesterday we "ended" a major heat wave here in SE Wisconsin; when the cold front came through from the northeast on Saturday the temperature dropped more than 20 degrees in less than 20 minutes!  But the high dew points stayed around Saturday evening and yesterday, although it was much nicer yesterday because the rain disappeared after the cold front passed through and yesterday was mostly sunny with a wonderful breeze of about 10 mph blowing off Lake Michigan.  It felt WONDERFUL!  Today the temperature is higher but the dew point is lower.  Didn't make any difference; by the time I was finished walking the 9 blocks from the supermarket home with 2 heavy canvas sacks of groceries, I was sweating.  Not dewey - sweating.  I sweat like a man working on an asphalt crew, unfortunately.

The pummeling rain storms did their work on the milkweed which I recently confirmed was such based on the recent photos I took of the prairie plant that Monarch butterflies love so much identified as such while I was visiting Granddad Bluff overlook of La Crosse, Wisconsin, just on the other side of the border with Minnesota.  I tied them up to the decorative fencing I have around the central air-conditioning compressor and they seem to have recovered somewhat today, after nearly a full day of sunshine and milder temperatures (and no rain) yesterday.

Here's a photo I took before the last rainfall that was the straw that tipped the camel (milkweed) over:

No flowers - I didn't even know they got flowers, but flowers they had at Granddad Bluff so maybe they need to receive more sun than they do in this location - you can see how shady it is and it stays that way most of the day.  Or maybe they need to grow for another year or two before they start blooming? 

These are total volunteers, not something I planted.  Somehow or other a milkweed seed found its way to this location last year and sprouted up, and despite my efforts to remove it - I didn't dig the root out of the ground after I failed to pull it out despite lots of yanking, huffing and puffing.  I thought it would die out over the winter after I'd cut it all the way down to the ground (a single lonely stalk), depriving it of all of its leaves.  But nope!  This is what came up this year, geez Louise!  There are eight separate stalks.

I think I'm going to have to transplant them to the driveway garden at the end of this season or maybe early next spring, because they need more sun.  It appears part of the problem that caused the flop-over was because they're "reaching" for the sun when it swings around to the south around 10 a.m. and starts flooding the backyard with sunshine.  This area receives some, but only a couple of hours at best. 

The bonus of having these is that this year I've seen Monarchs fluttering around the yard, and other butterflies too!

There's a single stalk of milkweed also growing in the driveway garden this garden - also a volunteer whose seed was dropped by who knows what bird in some poop or blown in on the wind, but I don't think you can see it in any of the photos below.  I took them to show you how much this space has grown all by its self (essentially) over the past four years!  I am especially proud of the hydrangea.  I should buy a couple more, they are soooooo gorgeous, but boy oh boy, while they love receiving the sun in this spot, the suck up water like there's no tomorrow.  I have to say, if nothing else, I get a workout just toting several 2.5 gallon watering cans out to the hydrangeas during hot, dry weather! 

I wish the lavender shading on some of the blooms had shown up more in these photos - they are really quite spectacular.  After the last rain storm when the cold front came through last Saturday, when I checked everything the next morning, several of the top-heavy blooms had drooped to the ground.  I cut them rather than try and tie everything up and they are not holding court on my dining table. 

Oh - there's the milkweed stalk!  You can just make it out on the far left side of the hydrangea - it's about as tall as the birdbath. 

The driveway garden is a trapezoid shaped area created where the previous owner(s) expanded the concrete driveway to fit the entire width of the 2.5 car garage.  It was - mostly - filled with large white marble stones that had not been placed on any landscape fabric before being laid down, EEK!  What a mess.  Filled with decayed leaves, weeds popping through everywhere, and no way to effectively mow or weed whack the area,

I decided it was perfect for development as a garden spot, especially after I had one of the three large pine trees lining that side of the driveway (the south side) in 2015 and the wasteland grew even larger.  The poor pine was very sick and I was afraid it would come down at some point in a bad wind storm if I didn't remove it, so remove it I did.  Well, not me personally, I paid to have people come and take it out because it was TALL and as you can see, very close lot lines here in the city, I'm only about 3 feet or so away from my neighbor's house - and so was that huge tree!  Judging from an assessor photo of the property I saw from 1977 or so, the pine trees (three of them) were just small things then, so I figured they're now more than 40 years old.  More about that shortly -

Above is another view of the driveway garden, and you can see where the concrete angles out toward the south lot line - which is where the neighbor's arborvitaes are planted.  You can see the solo stalk of the milkweed standing tall (pre-Sunday storm) just to the right of the birdbath, in front of the hydrangea.  The day lilies will be thinned out at the end of this season.  You know how they are - they would overtake the entire garden if I let them!  The purple cone flowers are doing fairly well this year although they seemed to have a very slow start, and the tall white flowers to the right of them that I call daisies (I don't know what they actually are) came over with the lambs ear a few years ago when I transplanted one shovel-full of dirt containing what I thought was only lamb's ears plants from one of the backyard planting beds to this then new garden!  The next year up cropped those tall white "daisies," while the actual much shorter white daisies I put in a few years ago have not fared nearly as well.  I'm just happy they showed up this year!  Last year I had a much larger circle of them, this year - not so much.  I never know what this garden is going to do.

Looking toward the garage, you can see how the garden angles to follow the line of the concrete driveway.  This end (the west end) of the bed isn't very pretty - you'll see why.  I do need to get in there, though, and clean up the grass, and I need to add new mulch.  One of my "to do list" projects is putting in a proper small concrete line of blocks to outline the garden bed correctly  - I have them now (I didn't when the bed was first created) so eventually this will get done, like so many other things on my "to do list."  My bleeding heart (the yellowing plant on the left near the hydrangea) is still holding on upright.  I don't cut her down until she nearly fully gives up the ghost.  She's one of my earliest bloomers and is usually done by mid-June if not before.  This year, it was cold, cold, cold, snowy, cold, cold, cold, wet, wet, wet WET WET WET WET and then it started baking outside - quickly.  We really didn't have a "spring" this year.  My poor bleeding heart didn't do very well, her beautiful pink flowers didn't last long at all.  She's been well fed and she pops up well before the columbines do, which come up willy nilly in my uncontrolled garden (I do remove some if they've sprouted where I don't want them and I don't have a place to transplant them, although it pains me to rip out and toss away any living plant).  So I expect she'll be fine for next year.

 
In the photo above, you can literally see the "root" of the problem as to why I haven't properly finished off the west side of the garden with a concrete block border.  It's the left-over of the pine tree stump that I had removed in 2015 and you can also see a part of a large root sticking up out of the earth to the left of the center bare spot, too - that popped up (literally!) out of the ground this year.  That I can cut away with my hand-saw and will give my arms a good workout, but the stump is beyond me.  Honestly, at this point, I am also leery of trying to hire one of those people who are always advertising around the area that provide "stump grinding" services.  You can see some of the white marble stones in the photo above near the lower right center of the photo.  Who know what lurks below the grass, etc.? 

The stump grinder of the folks who removed the tree for me was no match for the combination of the white marble stones that were EVERYWHERE buried and eaten up by the tree stump and the size of the stump itself, plus all of the roots.  They gave up and left me with a mess.  It's not sticking up above the ground exactly, but what a pain in the neck!  Like trees do, it raised a "hill" where the trunk sprang out of the ground and this area is also elevated above the surrounding ground.  Some grass has actually grown over part of the stump, but other areas have remained bare. 

What I have thought of doing is somehow getting a row (or two) of blocks down and then building out from there in a large enough area to expand the garden and create a raised bed, burying the stump totally.

There are two more pine trees further along the drive.  They are also infested with the same insect or fungus or whatever that is killing off the needles, and the trees show all the signs of distress that the first tree (now removed) did, only not as far along.  I am loathe to take them down because what shade I presently have on my house, my front lawn and garden beds will totally disappear when those trees go.  I can't afford to pay several thousand dollars to have a taller, more mature tree or a line of already taller arborvitae put in what would be a new barren area left on that side of the driveway overlooking my front yard to try and provide some meager shade!  What's a girl to do...

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation! The Rest of the Photos

Hola!  It's been hot as Hades here in SE Wisconsin and dry, dry, dry.  Amazing how dry and scorching the Sun can be after 10 straight days of it, even after all the rain we had in May and rain daily at the end of June when I left for my vacation.

Here are the rest of the photos from my vacation.  These are all from Grandad Bluff Park just over the border from Minnesota in La Crosse, Wisconsin.  It's a sight-seeing place that provides views for miles from bluffs and buttes formed over hundreds of thousands of years (millions of years, maybe - my geology is not up to snuff these days) by both river erosion in the "Driftless Area" where Wisconsin and Minnesota meet along the Mississippi River, and possibly also by the ancient "Inland Sea" and sedimentation that ultimately formed the bluffs and mesas hundreds of feet tall.  Whatever the origin, it's gorgeous - and worth the hair-raising ride up the narrow twisty-turning road to the top of the bluff where the viewing spot, etc. are.

I'd no idea what direction I was looking in, or what areas of the border area between Minnesota and La Crosse, WI and surroundings I was looking at, so - no descriptions.  You may notice that the sky in all of the photos was a bit hazy, both in these photos and also in the photos I took in Prentice earlier.  When I got back home I read that there had been terrible forest fires in Canada and the haze that was seen as far south as Milwaukee, WI was from those fires. 

You can see a couple of the bluff formations on the left side of the photo.

I tried to get a photo of the steep pitch downward over the other side of the railing and the rock outcroppings.

I wish I'd been able to get better photographs of some of the wild flowers growing along the bluffs - just
beautiful!  I have no idea what any of them are.

I've never seen milkweed in bloom!  It's got pretty sort of pinkish-lavenderish flowers!  Last year a solo plant suddenly
appeared in the garden bed holding my AC compressor along the backside of the house.  I tried to pull it out, wondering where on earth it had come from (from the Goddess of Nature, I guess) and couldn't, so I cut it down to the ground.  This year, it came back with a vengence - no less than 8 tall plants coming out of the same spot, and I noticed a
new one that sprouted right next to my hydrangea in the side garden - wasn't there last year!  So far, no signs
of flower buds, but boy oh boy, this year I'm noticing a lot of butterfly action around those plants!  So, they're keepers.

I came back to Milwaukee the next day. Once the train arrived.  It was about 2 hours behind schedule - tracks getting too crowded with freight trains that are given priority - not sure what's going on with all of that but I suspect it's because the for-profit railroads that haul primarily bulk goods and manufactured products are refusing to spend the money to add additional tracks although more and more of such shipments are being done by rail rather than by truck.  Evidently there is some kind of agreement with the Federal government to allow use of the passenger line(s) by freight rails, and now they're clogging the lines - taking advantage.  Profits over people.

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation!

Hola darlings!

Ahhhhhhhh, got back home early Monday evening after 12 days up north Wisconsin.  Family has land outside of Prentice, Wisconsin, way up north.  Unfortunately, the weather there was stormy, and then hot and humid and buggy just as it was in the city I left behind to escape to less humid, cooler temperatures (but still with far too many woman-eating bugs this time of year in the woodlands).  Oh well.  Still had a nice restful time.  B-I-L added a three-season porch to the back of the cabin a few years back and until the Sun came around overhead at 10 a.m. daily I was able to sit outside for about 4 hours and doodle around on my computer and read in peace, quiet, and coolness, surrounded by endless trees, a stream, and wildlife. There's something to be said about being the first one up in the early morning, when the mist is still on the ground, the dew is heavy, and the deer are out.

Above is a view from my sister's and B-I-L's front door in Tomah, Wisconsin.  That was home base (with the train from my home to theirs).  They live in "sand country," where mile after mile of endless rolling hills are covered with tree cover and underneath, are tons of sand and gravel.  Sand and gravel mines are a mainstop of the economy throughout this part of Wisconsin.  More views below:

Above, looking to the left - you can see a continuation of the ridge from the first photo.

The ridge continues along the road and encircles the subdivision.  This is looking toward the mid-right out the front door.

Looking further right near the corner, that road is one of two that provides access in and out to the subdivision.  That used to be a working farm.  Right now, it's used to board horses.

This is the one photo I captured up north at the cabin, LOL!  It had rained and been stormy most of the day, but at sunset it cleared.  This wooded area looks toward the deer feeder my sister keeps filled year round.  I had a photo of a fawn eating at the feeder, but it turned out too blurry to be of any use.  I'm hoping my sis got the same pic, as we were both snapping away at the same time when we took a quick evening walk after being cooped up in the cabin all day.  This looks toward one of their ATV paths on their 120 acres.This year we took a day trip to La Crosse, Wisconsin the day before I headed back home.  La Crosse is a beautiful small city located on the east side of the Mississippi River.  We  took a quick driving tour of La Crosse while checking out the tall sandstone bluffs left behind eons ago from a long-disappeared massive inland sea!  I especially fell in love with the homes on Cass Street. I'd been briefly over the Mississippi through La Crosse years ago on route to visit a friend at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester - but I primarily remember going through lots of small towns in Wisconsin and then stopping in Minnesota at a large barn filled with "antiques" and souvenirs.  I still have the souvenir I bought back then - a creamy white alabaster egg.

Welcome to Minnesota!  Photo is self-explanatory.  My sis wanted to see a lock.  It wasn't operative at the time we visited though.  Behind that fence and below the concrete dock is the mighty Mississippi.

Above is the "exit" of Lock 7.  Wisconsin is across the river to the left, I took this photo in Minnesota on the right side of this part of the river.

This is the view further along the exit of Lock 7.  You can see one of the many bridges that joins Wisconsin to Minnesota crossing over the river at this relatively narrow point.

This is one of the sandstone bluffs across from the entrance from the highway to Lock 7.  Closer up, which I wasn't able to get, the sandstone at the top reminded me of a Mayan ruin covered over by centuries of jungle!

Moving my camera a bit further to the left, I just had to get a photo of these "twin peaks," LOL!

Next post will contain photos from our stop at Grandads Bluff Park back in Wisconsin just over the Mississippi.  The views are spectacular.