Effigy Mounds National Monument is a fascinating and sacred place along the Upper Mississippi in a beautifully rugged region of northeast Iowa. The earthen mounds protected here by the National Park Service were built by prehistoric American Indian people between 800 and 1200 years ago. Some of the mounds are burial sites, while others are believed to be ceremonial, but many mysteries remain.
Sauerkraut and Innocence: Roadtripping with a Raindrop Moment #8
There’s something exhilarating about BIG skies – when I can stand in one place and see it from horizon to horizon, I think I can imagine how that hawk feels soaring above these Iowa cornfields. This morning’s sky is filled with pillowy clouds rolling in great waves across a background of October blue. Stretching in every direction is an endless sea of corn stalks swaying in the breeze, golden brown now, their work completed. At distant intervals, farmsteads dot the sea like emerald islands, with house, barn, sheds, and garden surrounded by trees, their tips showing the first tinge of fall. It seems to open up my chest, letting me stand taller and breathe deeper.