LCCA "Switching Tracks" Traveling Boxcar in La Crosse WI

Looks like fun for the Coulees Crowd!!

When I was a kid, Lacrosse was almost a second hometown.  Mom's family/relatives were all from Lacrosse.  We'd travel...usually by train...each summer from Washington, D.C. to visit for a month or so.

Yep, Grand Dad Bluff, Myrick Park, the now-gone art deco Burlington station (my near-daily haunt on a rented bicycle), my Uncle Bruno's butcher shop in North Lacrosse...Schlicht's Select Sausage. (Say that fast 6 times...when sloshed with suds!), going fishing with Uncle Eric on the Black River, having my hair cut by Uncle Werner, the barber (with dull scissors and clippers!...youch!!), going with Uncle Oscar to the Milwaukee station in North Lacrosse to do some business (He was a postal employee)

the ice cream parlor downtown that made an incredible sundae...The Lonesome...featuring blackberries and all sorts of other delectable toppings, sitting on Grandma's front porch after dark mesmerized by the Peerless Beer sign sequencing through its top-of-the-brewery light display several blocks away, my aunt/uncle's house on Ferry Street we stayed for the duration, the convenience store/bakery across the alley from them that featured free bouquets of baked goods scenting the neighborhood and selling Disney comic books for 10 cents.  And I remember a few warm sultry nights when the June bugs were so thick all over store windows and sidewalks it was like walking on grease!.  Yuk!

And, oh yes, the mighty Mississippi River.

But, the trains were always foremost on my mind.

Memories, memories.

KD