US Road Trip Pt. 3 - St. Louis and the Cahokia Mounds

The Arch in St. Louis is simply awesome. It towers over the city and reflects the sun brilliantly...I think I took over a hundred pictures. To see the Arch from a riverboat on the Mississippi River (which, by the way, is not a very pretty river), to see it standing straight underneath, to see it from atop the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois...I was endlessly fascinated by it. We rode to the top for great views of the city and saw a very good documentary on its construction - can't we build more similarly exciting public projects in the US?

We then headed back to Illinois to visit the Cahokia Mounds - a World Heritage site and National Historic Landmark. It's the largest prehistoric earthen construction in the Americas, consisting of large mounds built over hundreds of acres. These mounds used to be the foundations for homes, temples and funeral pyres. Cahokia was the largest city in the US until it was surpassed by Philly in the 1800s.

US Road Trip Pt. 2 - Des Moines & Iowa City

I'd been wanting to go to Iowa for a while. Not necessarily to see anything in particular, just to go. After all, they helped launch the Obama campaign and their Supreme Court just legalized gay marriage...to borrow an expression from one of my former co-workers: "Don't sleep on Iowa."

As interesting as our tour of the Iowa state capitol building was, as oddly fascinating as the farms of wind turbines were, as pastoral as the University of Iowa & Iowa City was, and as endless as the fields upon fields of corn were, the most memorable part of our trip to Iowa ended up being a pure accident...

"The World's Largest Truck Stop." When we saw this sign sticking out along the neverending flatness of I-80, we had to take a detour and it didn't disappoint. Trucker gear, fanatic patriotism, greasy food, and hilarious Christian t-shirts were everywhere. We were entertained, and maybe even too much so...I remember saying "hurry up" as we were walking towards our car to leave.

US Road Trip Pt. 1 - Minneapolis

Drove through Wisconsin on our way to Minneapolis, and I have to say, Wisconsin is the kitschiest state...and I love it. With its cheese shops, ski mobile crossing signs, and black-and-white cows, all you can do is smile...as long as you're there during the summer.

We helped Minneapolis celebrate Pride 2009 and did the touristy stuff as well - toured the Mill City Museum, explored the Modern Sculpture Garden, and imitated Mary Tyler Moore.

Did you know that Minneapolis is known as the Mill City - from the days when they were the flour capital of the country? Old mills, including Pillsbury, are still in tact and unsurprisingly are now being converted into luxury lofts.