Looking down from the Julien Dubuque monument

I may be writing a travel guide, but I want to create something that is more than just a list of ways to pass the time. I want to describe the feeling of a place, to steer visitors toward experiences that help understand a town’s history and what makes it tick. Unfortunately, I don’t usually have a lot of time to figure this out. I zip in, check out a few sites, try to chat people up, and go with my gut feelings. (I guess that makes me more like W than I want to admit.) For better or worse, I am at the mercy of my first impressions.

I am thinking about this as I am sitting in a restaurant in Dubuque. I have now been in Dubuque for all of 29 hours and while I don’t hate it, I don’t really like it, either. This disturbs me. I think back to my first visit to the Quad Cities and smile. Why did I like the Quad Cities so quickly but am struggling to find something to like about Dubuque?

The first time I visited the Quad Cities, Davenport, specifically, was in the middle of winter. Not a great time of year for the to shine. Lucky for me a brewpub was next door to my hotel. I like brewpubs. I especially like those within walking distance. I entered and before I could settle myself on a barstool, the bartender smiled and said hi. Same for the guys on my right, who introduced themselves right after the bartender’s greeting. Now that’s a way to make a first impression. Immediately I liked the Quad Cities. The next day, I visited a unique little museum and two galleries highlighting the works of local artists. I liked the QC even more, a feeling made permanent after a return visit to the brewpub the next night: QC = good. In subsequent visits to the Quad Cities, and there have been a few more, any bad experience was the aberration, not the rule.

Dubuque County Courthouse

A few weeks later, I am in Dubuque, another Mississippi River town favored with abundant natural beauty. I passed through here last year, accidentally, and was impressed enough by the visuals of the town to look forward to a more purposeful visit down the road.

I get into town early enough to check out the welcome center, which turns out to be merely a center. The woman working doesn’t seem to know a damn thing, or maybe she just isn’t in a mood to share. “I see the annual Catfish Festival is going on this weekend”, I observe. “What exactly happens at the Catfish Festival?” Expressionless, she replies “I’m not sure. Check the brochure.” Undaunted, I ask another question: “Is the festival within walking distance of downtown?” She makes a token effort to lift her head and look at me, then says that the festival is “at the end of Hawthorne Street.” Being from out-of-town, hence my presence in the welcome center, this means nothing to me. Finally daunted, I walk away and turn my attention to the racks of brochures, which I know will be in a better mood to communicate with me than she is.

Finished with her and the welcome center, I choose to ignore the dark clouds rolling in and change into my workout clothes. After nearly seven hours in the car, I need some exercise. Five minutes after I start to jog around town, it rains – very, very hard. I get very, very wet. OK, I can’t blame Dubuque for that one.

This first night I am going to eat dinner in the nearby village of St. Donatus, which is celebrating its Luxembourgian heritage in the quintessential Midwestern way – with a buffet dinner. After a quick 15 minute drive, I enter the restaurant and stop to visit with a couple of volunteers about the town and the festival, then I do another quintessential Midwestern thing and buy a few raffle tickets. The two women are impressed that I traveled from St. Louis for their humble dinner and genuinely hope that I win something. They even ask for my cell phone number so they can call me in case I do. I oblige. Waiting in line for a table, I chat with the guy in front of me, who turns out to be the state rep. He talks with me for several minutes, even though he knows I am not a registered voter in his district. Even the local politician can make time for small talk with an out-of-tower.

Hotel Julien

The dinner is very impressive, loaded with wiener schnitzel, homemade noodles, potato pancakes, weisswurst, and this strange dish called treipen, which is awesome, by the way. I expected it to be the innards of some animal but it turned out to be blood sausage. Stop moaning. It may not sound any more appetizing than critter guts, but I like it so much that I have seconds. You know what? I like St. Donatus, even if it is not my lucky night for the raffle.

Hunger sated and back in Dubuque, I am ready to check out the town. Lucky for me, my favorite type of place is across the street – a brewpub. The restaurant and bar are in a building that once housed a carriage factory and it looks sharp inside. I notice that the wait staff is mostly high school girls, and they are buzzing about frantically, even though the place is more empty than full. The bartender is jittery and unfocused, possibly from speed withdrawal or maybe just frazzled from making one Brandy Alexander too many. It takes a while to get a beer out of him, hell, it took ten minutes for him to even look at me, even though I am sitting right in front of him. When I finally get a chance to sip it, the ‘the stout that made us famous’ has one dominant flavor – sour. This is not a flavor I favor in a stout. As my lips curl from the experience, the guy sitting next to me, who seemed dour and unapproachable when I walked in, starts to argue with his wife, girlfriend, or whatever the hell she is. Arguing loudly. On his cell phone. I take a few more sips of the skanky beer and leave.

I need to get that experience out of my system, so I head to the hotel bar. Yes, another bar. Hey, in my defense, I think bars and diners are the two most reliable places to get a feel for a place. This hotel, The Julien, has lots of character, meaning it is old and imperfect but very atmospheric. Al Capone used to stay here. Who needs a shower that keeps a steady temperature when you have ghosts like that roaming around?

The bar has the same ghostly feel as the rest of the hotel. It is a dimly lit cavernous room big enough to host a political convention, with faded dark red wallpaper speckled with gold fleur-des-lis, carpet to match, and an occasional patch of linoleum squares that pass for a dance floor. In all of this space, there are about ten stools at the bar, seven of which are occupied when I show up. Other than these seven people sitting at the bar, the place is eerily empty. It’s pushing ten o’clock on a Thursday night; I expected a few more people might be out. I pick one of the three empty stools and set out to insert myself into someone’s conversation. I don’t succeed. I really only have two chances – either the group of three to my left or the group of three to my right. I am not counting the drunk at the end of the bar. I prefer some minimal amount of coherency in my conversation partners, even in a tavern. When the group to my right moves to the privacy of a booth and the drunk stumbles out, I feel like I have been hung out to dry. I am now sitting uncomfortably adjacent to a group of three people who are on my left, while to my right I am flanked by seven empty barstools. I am doomed. I make a couple of token efforts to get into the middle of their conversation, but they are greeted with a resounding indifference. Unwelcome center, lousy beer, indifferent drunks – I should absolutely hate Dubuque right now and very nearly do.

The prettiest trailer park in the country (Dubuque IA)

The second day is better. I see more of the city’s sights, including a couple of excellent parks and what is probably the best museum about the Mississippi River. But, that is the crux of the problem for me. Is Dubuque just a collection of sights to see? Or, is it a place that I can relate to? Is it just harder to crack the surface here than in the Quad Cities? Or is this whole enterprise of exploring new places just a collection of moments defined by dumb luck?

Whatever the case, tomorrow I am going back to the Quad Cities, and I feel like summer camp just ended, and I am going home.

Bad Decision of the Day: Going to the hotel bar for one more drink.

© Dean Klinkenberg, 2007