Day #75 - 5/26/2011 - Decorah, Iowa

With the weather calling for in-our-face winds, we took a day off in Decorah.  We’re usually out of the Super 8  door before they put up breakfast, but not today.  Lani had cold cereal and I made oatmeal in the room.  Then, we hopped into the U-Haul and headed to downtown Decorah.

The Scandinavian influence was obvious and, considering that we were in Iowa, surprising…I mean…who knew?  I certainly didn’t.

Settled in 1849, Decorah is a center for Norwegian-American culture originating from a high
number of Norwegian settlements beginning in the 1850s.  30% of the city's 8172 residents
are of Norwegian ancestry.  Their Norwegian fingerprints were all around the town, in this
case, selling Norwegian insurance to each other in a mutual fashion.

While Lani is drawn to old bookshops and Bob to a good wine shop, we're both attracted to, I'm not even sure what to call them anymore...shops like Tower Records, you know, the sort of places that used to sell vinyl LPs.  In Decorah, such a shop was Mister Groovys.  We went in, wondering if it would staffed by hippies.  Decoran hippies.  Norwegian Decoran hippies.

Shops like this are treasures, better than similar shops in larger cities because the lower real estate
costs allow for better prices.  That's my theory.

Mister Groovys had an extensive collection of old LPs.  It was fun thumbing through the bins as I recognized so many of the covers, all of which threw me back 4 decades, back to when I remember paying $3.47 for a vinyl LP.  Lani picked up copies of Springsteen's Born in the USA, Simon/Garfunkle Bridge over Troubled Water and a Ray Charles album…the store shipped them back.

My personal LP collection peaked at 250 albums, or so, most succumbing to water damage in
the garage...a vinyl tragedy. Lani has all that survived, mostly those artists in the A-C range,
like Abba, Herb Alpert and Chicago.  Don't laugh.

We walked the length of the downtown, arriving at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, the oldest and most comprehensive museum in the United States devoted to a single immigrant ethnic group.

The museum contains 24,000 artifacts reflecting the experience of Norwegian-Americans, particularly in the Upper Midwest. The museum compound consists of 16 buildings, including a restored stone mill, a Norwegian Lutheran church, and several houses. 

Speaking of Lutheran churches, Decorah is home to home to Luther College, a private four-year residential college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Lutheranism had spread throughout Scandinavia in the 16th century...then to Iowa in the 1800s with the arrival of Norwegian settlers.

In addition to the museum, Decorah hosts the annual Nordic Fest, greeting 50,000-75,000 guests who come to commemorate the traditional customs and culture of Scandinavian countries, especially Norway. 

The Decorah downtown came to a quiet and scenic end at the Once Upon a Time Bookstore , which attracted Lani like white on rice.

Unfortunately the store looked as charming as it was closed.

It's worth noting that the Norwegians were only able to settle this area after the Winnebago Indians were cleared from the area.  In what is probably not an isolated bit of historic irony, Chief Waukon Decorah had allied with the U.S. during the Black Hawk War of 1832 only to later be forced out of of the area.  At least the city was named after him.

It turns out that if you want to play high school baseball in Iowa, Decorah High School is where you want to be.  Their coach, Dennis Olejniczak, is a legend.  No wonder that Decorah High baseball pride was evident.

After our casual tour of downtown Decorah, we returned the our truck to an actual U-Haul location and returned to our Super Duper 8.