Not all tourist traps are alike. At some point, a tourist trap transcends its label, becoming a “must-see” simply for being so over the top. I can’t remember when we saw the first Wall Drug roadside sign, but its fame far exceeded its actual appearance.
We’d long left Chicago’s skyline behind for the flatlands. Of course, before the wide-open spaces, we traversed Wisconsin and Minnesota. It’s kind of arbitrary, but somehow poetic, to declare that crossing the Mississippi River truly makes you feel “out West” for the first time.
I-90 crosses the Mississippi on the Wisconsin-Minnesota border immediately south of Lake Onalaska. Yeah, they call it a lake, but it looks like it’s part of the river. Stretching 4 miles across, this is the widest span of the Mississippi River (if you include the Lake).
Oddly, crossing the Mississippi didn’t immediately scream “out West.” Instead, my brain went Continue Reading “Tourist Traps to Timeless Landscapes”
Nature’s Spectacle of Fire, Water, and Yellow Stone
Embarrassed by its failure to preserve the sanctity of Western New York’s natural wonder, our nation sought to avoid repeating the debacle of Niagara Falls’ commercial free-for-all. After exploring Yellowstone’s natural beauty, Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden wrote this warning to Congress in his Geological Survey of 1871 (reprinted in Hayden’s 1880 book The Great West and in the September 1880 issue of The Naturalists’ Leisure Hour and Monthly Bulletin):
Continue Reading “Nature’s Spectacle of Fire, Water, and Yellow Stone”