Mounds and Memorials

Boys: What are we doing today?

Me: First stop is a few minutes away, just on the other side of the Mississippi River... Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. It's a World Heritage Site, too!

Boys: Mounds?! *groan* 

Such negativity! I assured them that this place was much more interesting than our first encounter with mound builders at Effigy Mounds National Monument in 2011 (read that blog post here). That episode is not-so-fondly remembered as our worst national park visit EVER. We hiked uphill in hot, humid weather and battled blood-sucking mosquitoes to see grass-covered bumps which didn't look like much of anything from ground level.  

OK, so maybe their groaning this morning was justified...

When we arrived at Cahokia Mounds, we could see right away that this was going to be a very different visit. Unlike Effigy Mounds where the mounds are scattered among trees and hard to visualize, here the mounds are exposed and quite obvious.

Monks Mound is the most prominent one, standing ~100 feet tall. It is the largest man-made earthen mound in North America.

Monks Mound

Taking a breather on the terrace, with even more stairs to climb!

It was easy to spot St. Louis from the top of Monks Mound

Twin Mounds

Cahokia was inhabited from around 700-1400 AD, the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico. At its peak around 1100 AD, the population was estimated to be 10,000-20,000 people - equivalent to many European cities of the same time period.

The exhibits at the interpretive center were very interesting, with hundreds of artifacts from the site on display. It's fascinating to think about what this early civilization was able to accomplish with only simple means at their disposal!

The next stop on our way back to my parents' house was to see the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, IL. Since this marks the 150th year since his death, we'll hit a number of Lincoln sites on this trip. So what better place to begin than with the end?!

Rubbing Lincoln's nose for luck

This is a miniature of the sculpture found in the Lincoln Memorial

President Lincoln's remains are entombed in a vault
ten feet beneath the marble monument

And best of all, we made it back in time to grab a late lunch at...

Gondolas!