A Late Summer Roadtrip, without the Drift

If you don’t know what the Driftless Area is, this is the post for you.

With the summer winding down, and the last weeks of road-tripping season up ahead, we thought we’d do one last post about the fun of traveling by car around and through America.

The only question: Which part do we want to explore?

It’s a tough choice. The United States is filled with unique and identifiable regions like the Pacific Northwest, New England, the Great Plains, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Delta . . . places that conjure up a specific picture in our imaginations. And each is very road-trip worthy, for sure.

But those locations already get plenty of visibility, so—like we did with our post(s) on the Oregon Coast—we thought we’d concentrate on a region of the country not so well-known. It didn’t take long to  discover the Driftless Area.

The name alone got our attention. We had questions. If something is “driftless,” then what is “drift”? Snow drift? Wind drift? It sounded a little foreboding, actually.

So we looked into it, starting with location. Turns out, the Driftless Area is quite large, spreading across southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and a tiny northwestern corner of Illinois. This map helps visualize it.

Next we found out what “drift” was: it’s the clay, silt, sand, gravel, and boulders that resulted from glacial melting during the Ice Age. So, if an area is “driftless,” it was never ravaged by glaciers.

That makes the landscape unique. Features include steep valleys and dramatic bluffs (because glacial deposits smooth out the land, and that didn’t happen here). Rivers carve deep gorges through the land. The area’s karst topography generates sinkholes, limestone caves, and underground rivers.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s one:

 

The above is the heart of the area, Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin. It’s at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers. You can see the area is lush and remote, a favorite for outdoor sportspeople and national park enthusiasts, who will find they have many options to choose from.

Therefore, the perfect regional road trip in the Driftless Area is going to be characterized by winding country roads that go over rolling hills, line the bluffs of the Mississippi River, and run past imposing limestone formations. There are forests, too, like this one in Effigy Mounds State Monument, Iowa:

Not that the region is uninhabited. Far from it. There are plenty of attractions run by real, live human beings. You’ll roll through small towns and villages with names like Viroqua, Mineral Point, and Lanesboro, full of unique charm and, often, uncommon items for purchase.

You’ll also find round barns, local creameries and breweries, Amish goods, and strange roadside attractions. In addition, you’ll find a healthy mix of c-stores, including multiple SSCS customers. But as we have run out of time and space, we’ll have to wait until next week to get into the details.

We’ll see you then!