Wisconsin, worth the detour.

Outdoors

A lumber baron's widow bought this 1,183-foot mesa in 1909 to stop a quarry company from blasting it apart, then donated it to the city -- today a 1938 WPA stone shelter frames the single best view of La Crosse, the Mississippi, and the Minnesota bluffs beyond, with a statue of the woman who saved it standing watch.

Outdoors

Sits exactly where the Trempealeau River meets the Mississippi -- climb the CCC-built stone shelter atop 520-foot Brady's Bluff and you're looking down at Trempealeau Mountain, one of the few true river islands in America with its own freestanding mountain.

Outdoors

A CCC-built stone overlook 500+ feet above the exact spot where the Wisconsin River pours into the Mississippi -- Marquette and Joliet paddled past this bluff in 1673 on their way to becoming the first Europeans recorded reaching the river, and the view hasn't needed improving since.

Outdoors

Alma is wedged onto a single street between a 500-foot bluff and the river -- climb the walking trail from town and you're not just looking at the Mississippi, you're looking straight down onto Lock and Dam No. 4, watching barges lock through in miniature below your feet.

History

The oldest European settlement on the Upper Mississippi, founded where the Fox-Wisconsin water route from the Great Lakes met the big river -- the restored 1870 Villa Louis mansion sits on the grounds of the original Fort Shelby, watching the same convergence that made this a fur-trade crossroads for two centuries.