North to Dubuque, Iowa · · PAGE 12. 

July 22, 2019:  We found lower fuel prices in Bettendorf, Iowa at the gas station previously used by the Google Earth camera car.  It was just about 7:10 PM Eastern Time, 6:10 Central Time here, and several hours before it gets totally dark, usually after 9 PM Central Time.  My only other trip to Bettendorf, Iowa was in January 1977 to visit the Cox Cable office in this town.  The weather that day was cold, rain, and snow - - the same as in SOUTH FLORIDA that day.

Des Moines is west on Interstate 80.  We will follow that route only to the first exit at US 61 and continue north to Dubuque, Iowa for tonight.

Here is our last highway for today as we head north toward Dubuque, Iowa on US 61.

The very first US 61 exit north if Interstate 80 leads to the Davenport Airport.  I flew over this highway in 2010 heading for Oshkosh.  I stopped at the Dubuque Airport for avgas that day before my flight over the Field of Dreams then the flight to Oshkosh.  Be sure to look at pages 8 and 9 on that trip to Oshkosh before you return to this page.

The day we drove up US 61 going north, I saw this exit sign and thought about how US 30 goes from New York City to the Pacific Ocean west of Astoria, Oregon.  I have driven on parts of US 30 in Oregon, Idaho, Ohio, and in Pennsylvania.  The two towns mentioned here, Dewitt and Clinton, were both named after a Governor of New York who promoted the building of the Erie Canal back in the days of Presidents Madison and Jefferson in the early 1800's.  I am surprised by how much of the history of this country is connected.

Dubuque, Iowa Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River

July 22, 2019:  The lock and dam number 11 at Dubuque can be busy with river traffic at times.  I visited this location in 1996 when my son Jason and I had a road trip together the week of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.  I have some photos I took with my film camera on the 1996 visit.  This Google Earth satellite image captures both north and southbound barges on the day of this image.

This is a closer satellite view of the locks.

Down on the ground, this sign at the end of the access road gives the official information about this Mississippi River Facility.  I drove down to the lock and dam in the early evening of  July 22, 2019 before going to our motel.  I wanted to get more light in case I took some photos.  These images from Google Earth are more suited for first time visitors to my web site.

There is a visitor viewing station to the right of the photo above.  On this day of imaging, Google Earth had a vehicle and a portable "back pack" camera system in use to get some of the photos. Here is the ground view from the Google pickup truck capturing images today.  This is the south end of the locks seen from the access road.  That appears to be the Google vehicle at the bottom left of the image.

This is an image from the Google truck parked near the sign and gate above looking at the visitor viewing stand.

The shadow shows the camera operator with the back pack strapped on his back.  You can see how images are overlapped to create a panoramic view.

This image is taken from the landing on the steps seen in the image above.

This image from the viewing stand is pointing north at the north end of the locks.

This view is looking south with the lock gates open up against the walls.

This is the view looking north from stairway landing on the west side of the viewing stand.

This is looking west at the cliff from the viewing stand from the back pack camera rig.

Here is our last view before leaving the lock and dam area looking south along the access road.  In order to get these Google Earth views near the lock and dam, it was necessary to get out of STREET VIEW then move closer to the viewing stand before dragging the little man over in front of the gate by the viewing stand.  NO BLUE LINES are visible in that area by the viewing stand, so this action that gives access to the images seen above on this page below the first two satellite images.

The Quality Inn in Dubuque, Iowa was our motel for this night.  The last GPS data point is time stamped at 9:01:03 Eastern Time, which is 8:01 PM Central time with plenty of daylight remaining to get unpacked and think about what we want for dinner.  While preparing this web page, I noticed the Google car drove into the parking lot for this hotel.  Did the driver spend the night here when this image was made back in August 2018?  Who knows?

Although this Perkins Restaurant is shown in daylight condition, it was after dark when Linda and I came here for dinner.  This being Tuesday night, they were having FREE PIE night with dinner.  Our Village Inn back home in Saint Cloud, Florida has FREE PIE all day on Wednesday