A houseboat getaway on the Mississippi tunes in to the Great River’s rhythms

I’ve never volunteered so quickly to wash dishes. The view helped.

A bald eagle was perched in a tree about 30 feet away. We watched each other as I cleaned plates and pans from chili and grilled cheese made in the kitchen of a houseboat that rocked gently beneath my feet. The rocking picked up tempo when a boater buzzed past, leaving a washboard wake.

I had grown up visiting my grandma’s tiny cabin above the Mississippi River outside Wabasha, Minn., back when the fish couldn’t be eaten (too many contaminants) and eagles were never seen after farm chemicals decimated their population. I also drive across the Mississippi River several times a week near home in St. Cloud.

Yet here in this houseboat near Lansing, Iowa, 10 miles south of the Minnesota border, it felt like I could, for the first time, connect to the river on an intimate level, rocking with its rhythms and admiring its wildlife from the shore of a sandbar near Island No. 143 in Pool 9.

My husband, Bob, and I met a group of friends at S&S Boat Rentals in Lansing at the tail end of the season in 2022. On the 60-foot Party Top Sharpe, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a dining area maximized every inch of space on the lower level, while the upper deck was reserved for embracing the breeze while cruising past the steep bluffs of the Driftless Area.

Catching up on that upper deck while parked in the marina on our first night, we waved at the crew piloting a barge headed upriver. Not long afterward, the now-defunct American Countess cruise ship paddled its way beneath the Black Hawk Bridge on its way downriver. It rounded a river bluff, with the sun dropping behind it.

S&S co-owner Blake Schoh joined us on board the next morning and gave us the rundown for piloting the boat. Karl Schneider, the most experienced boater among us, listened intently to instructions on the motor, the generator, steering, parking on sandbars, setting the anchor and staying in the main channel — the only water deep enough for the houseboat.

We had to simultaneously avoid barges that stretch up to 1,000 feet and be wary of the dreaded wing dams — a kind of erosion control — that could lurk below the water and damage your watercraft.

“It’s an ever-changing environment,” said Schoh.

After our lesson, we spent the day cruising the southern end of so-called Pool 9, a 31-mile-stretch of the Mississippi between Genoa, Wis., and Harper’s Ferry, Iowa. We passed skeletal trees where cormorants stood with wings fully stretched to dry out. Another bald eagle watched from the Wisconsin shoreline, and we motored past a long parade of white pelicans feeding and preening for their migratory flight south.

At night, we fired up the grill and enjoyed what may have been our best steaks ever. Sure, food seems to taste better when enjoyed outdoors or with friends, but those steaks also came from the 100-year-old City Meat Market in nearby New Albin, Iowa.

“There’s a meat vending machine for after hours,” said Kim Schneider, who brought the steaks. Meat vending machine? We put it on our must-do list for the road trip home.

Going to sleep that night among the islands and eagles, with the slight rock of the river, felt comforting on a primal level.

In the morning, it was tempting to stay in bed with a sliding-glass door facing the river with its wisps of fog and a rosy glow. Instead, I threw on a fleece and climbed quietly to the upper deck with my camera. I found Kim already there, likewise soaking in the spectacle of gold, pink and lavender clouds mirrored by the Mississippi. With the crisp almost-fall weather and a cup of coffee, there was no better way to launch a new day.

Reservations with S&S Houseboats are three or four nights, with this year’s season extended until early October. The family business also rents fishing boats and pontoons to get into the backwaters. Boaters can dock and camp at 30-some first-come first-served campsites on Pool 9. S&S will also park houseboats on an island for customers uncomfortable with navigating them (ssboatrentals.com).

Blackhawk Park, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campground along the shore of Pool 9, can be found north of De Soto, Wis. It includes a boat launch, fishing pier and beach (recreation.gov).

The three-story Driftless Area Education and Visitors Center in Lansing offers an interactive overview of what makes this part of the Midwest unique, from geology and wildlife (including live snakes) to the importance of the river for travel, fish, trapping beavers and using clam and mussel shells for buttons. It also offers some of the best river views.

Lansing’s Mount Hosmer City Park offers blufftop views of the Mississippi, its islands and the cantilevered Black Hawk Bridge connecting Wisconsin and Iowa.

Nearby Effigy Mounds National Monument gives insight into burial mound-building ancestral cultures linked to 20 modern tribal nations. It’s a steep but worthy hike up Fire Point Trail to river overlooks and past some of the more than 200 mounds, including one shaped like a bear (nps.gov/efmo).

Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, marking its 100th anniversary, stretches 261 miles from Wabasha, Minn., to Rock Island, Ill. If you can’t get on a boat, stop at Minnesota’s Brownsville Wildlife Overlook along U.S. Hwy. 61 for views of sheltered areas where waterfowl such as wigeons, goldeneyes and pintails gather during migration (fws.gov/refuge/upper-mississippi-river).

Lansing’s Safe House Saloon showcases hundreds of bottle caps, booths hung with velvet curtains, and a Main Street building that feels full of history. They’re known for craft beer, deep-fried cheese curds and wings; pizzas range from classics to shrimp and crab or one combining al pastor meat, enchilada sauce and pineapple (safehousesaloon.com).

City Meat Market in New Albin was the first smokehouse in Iowa when it opened in 1882. The vending machine out front — surely another “first” — dispenses sausages, jerky and pre-wrapped refrigerated meat after hours (citymeatnewalbin.com).

St. Cloud-based freelance writer Lisa Meyers McClintick has written more than 130 travel features for the Minnesota Star Tribune.