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”
A European Tug Of War
Why, then, would the powers of the day go through all the trouble of pretense?
Well, first, it was all pretend. Europeans did come to this New World. Some explored. Some conquered. Many settled. Still, their activities covered only a small fraction of their claims.
But it was the claim itself that rendered prestige. It was a symbol of potency, a symbol of Continue Reading “A European Tug Of War”