This year for the Fourth of July, we spent our time around Cresco and Decorah, Iowa.  The first picture above is from an overlook above Decorah in Palisades Park.  The pictures of the falls are of Dunning Springs.  Although it was extremely warm, when I put my foot in the falls, it was so cold that it actually hurt.

Phelps Park was the first organized park in Decorah, Iowa, and overlooks the Upper Iowa River valley.  The stone walkway and gazebo are signs of the wonderful care and love the residents have shown for the park, and the fountain honoring war veterans is a cool place to sit and even soak your feet.

We made good use of the canoe this year.  Our first foray onto the water was up the Turkey River in Cresco, Iowa.  I was surprised how easy it was to canoe up the river.  Most of the rivers we canoe, the current is so strong that it takes quite a bit do accomplish the task.  During the weekend, we acquired navigation lights so we could take the canoe out after dark.  I found our night  trip up the river to be quite interesting, especially with the critters that come out after dark.  On our way back to the landing, we got an extra treat, as a local group was putting on a fireworks show

With Riceville, Iowa, being only twenty miles away, we decided to head over and do a little canoeing around Lake Hendricks.  It was a busy campground and lake over the Fourth, that is for sure.  While we were canoeing we had an unexpected problem.  We were moving along nicely, when we felt something drag along the bottom of the canoe, like we bottomed out, or ran across a log.  Then we actually got stuck.  The problem was, we couldn't figure out we were hung up on.  The bottom was well over six feet deep and there were no fallen trees that we could see.  After a bit of rocking back to get the canoe off of it, we discovered that there was a stump just beneath the surface of the water.  How we managed to get snagged on that, I will never know.  The stump can just about be seen in the last picture.