Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
Visiting Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site | Last Day of Vacation | A Week in Iowa | January 2023
Curtis: Since visiting mounds along the Natchez Trace last year, we’ve been slowly learning more about the pre-historic cultures of the Eastern United States and visiting more and more mounds, piecing together the academic history with the physical history (one of our favorite ways to learn). And in all of my research writing the history segments for this blog, I’ve seen repeated references to Cahokia Mounds as the largest mound site of the Mississippian Culture, and determined that we simply had to visit.
Fortunately, our hotel in Illinois was less than five minutes away. The site is administered as an Illinois State Historic Park and an UNESCO site and has a museum (that we can’t visit with Charlie) that we’re sure has tons of interesting information. But the grounds themselves are free and were open early enough for us to visit. Unfortunately, our morning visit meant that it was fairly cold, but we did our best walking around the enormous site and among the numerous mounds.
The site is enormous, covering close to 6 square miles with 120 mounds. It was, in all senses, a city, which is somewhat hard to imagine considering that it peaked in the 1300’s and clashes with our preconceived notions of ancient Americans. The central focus of the site is Monk’s Mound, an enormous mound rising 100 feet from the surrounding plain and the largest North American earthwork North of Mexico. Jess and Charlie stayed warm in the car while I climbed the stairs to the top of the mound which gave not only an impressive view of the site itself, but also views of St. Louis and the Gateway Arch to the West. This site is absolutely worth a visit for anyone traveling through St. Louis, especially if it’s any warmer than it was for us today.
Jess: Once our time here was finished, we wrapped up our month of travel by driving the last 5 hours North into Iowa. I have to say, I almost feel guilty writing a sentence like that — like who are we to be able to take almost a month to go on a road trip, and hike and explore new areas? This trip was so profound for us as it helped to squash any doubts we had about our new chosen life. We feel so fortunate for Curtis to have found a remote job in the field he is most interested in that allowed for this to happen. This trip also confirmed to us that we made the right decision to not buy or rent a home right away, and to instead take advantage of the position we’re in while we can. We also now firmly believe that January is the best time to travel to the Southeast/Southern Appalachians — even though it’s cold and sometimes snowy, it’s still warmer than Northern areas, and the “cold” is much more tolerable than the summer heat, there aren’t any bugs, much less people on the trails, and house rentals are easier to find and cheaper than other seasons. So who knows, maybe this will become a yearly tradition when Curtis isn’t on an assignment?
Anyway, here’s a breakdown of this first trip of 2023!
- 31 Days (including 5 with family in MI & 5 in Wilmington for work)
- 13 States
- 5 Nights of Camping
- 10 National Park Administered Sites
- 24 Waterfalls
- 2 State High Points
- Hiked to 10 Peaks
We stayed with my parents for one week at the end of January/beginning of February. We had a few tasks we had to complete while we were in what we’re considering is our home state, even though this was possibly the only week we’d be spending there for the first half of the year. Because of that, we also had chosen to spend this week with family since it would be a while before we could return. The first half of the week was brutally cold in the single digits with sub-zero windchill, but it warmed up nicely as the week went on. We spent a lot of time with our niece, who was now 9 months old and just on the verge of walking — but she waited until one week after we left to take her first solo steps. The week passed by quickly, and before we knew it we were packing up the car once again to set off on Curtis’ first “outage season.”
A huge thank you goes to my parents for their continued hospitality, and for letting us use their address to call our “home” for all official purposes (being nomadic is logistically complicated in so many ways without a home address)!
