Nomad Midwest Trip, Day 15: Effigy Mounds National Monument

Tuesday morning, we left Waunakee and drove to Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa. EMNM is another Native American mound site, but these are much smaller than the ones in Cahokia, and many are shaping like bears or eagles. According to the peoples' beliefs, bears are the protectors of the earth and eagles of the sky.

Three was fascinated by all of the butterflies we saw over the course of our trip.

Aerial view of the Marching Bears group.

Two wanted a picture with the owls for Nana and our neighbor.

A group of three conical mounds

We chose a two-mile roundtrip hike and got off to a very slow start. Hazelnuts were all over the ground and everyone wanted to fill their pockets and hands with them. We were stopping every few steps to pick up another nut. Finally I told them to pick one nut each, give it to me, and leave all the rest for the squirrels. We moved faster after that.

{Four, Five, One}

Nuts!

{Five, One, Four, Three, Two}

This is a compound mound. It's two conical mounds connected by a linear mound.

{Four, Two, Five, Three, One}

Beautiful wildflowers

This is the first bear we saw. It's really not much of a mound, but the shape can be seen in the distinction between the grasses. Many of these mounds are burial sites, so the whole area is considered sacred by living descendants.

Then there was a trail of about 17 conical mounds leading out to an overlook at the Mississippi River.

Hello, Frog!

"Mom, it looks like the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!"

{Four, One, Three, Two, Five}

Crossing back into Wisconsin to get lunch, only to cross back into Iowa to drive up towards Minnesota.

A small town used space by the high school football field for solar panels!

The drive north was very scenic. My sister-in-law Tabitha let me borrow her book titled The Most Scenic Drives in America. I drove north on 76, continued on X52 to Lansing, then crossed the bridge into Wisconsin and took 35 up to Lacrosse where I crossed the river again into Minnesota and connected with I-90. Those roads just hugged the Mississippi River! In my opinion, the Iowa side was prettier.

Green swamps

Nearing Rochester, Minnesota, we were given a heads-up about torrential rains blowing east. I'm so glad it stayed north of the highway and we didn't have to drive through that!