We had a pleasant Shabbos visiting Tricia’s sister.  No-one is in a rush here, the town is well kept, and with houses here available for well less than one hundred thousand dollars, it seems almost too good to be true:

B said her farewells to the dog:

We stopped at the grocery store on the way out of town and admired the mural on the wall:

We drove west and entered Iowa:

We stopped at Effigy Mounds National Monument:

The Monument preserves burial mounds, some of which are effigy mounds, which are burial mounds that are shaped like animals.  The mounds are estimated to have been constructed between 600CE and 1250CE.  We checked out the visitor center:

We hiked up the trail leading to a group of mounds.  Along the way we looked out over the Mississippi River:

The trail skirted a series of mounds on the left:

This is an animal effigy mound.  It’s hard to tell, but the body is in the background and the legs are coming into the foreground:

The kids think they’re too old to do the Junior Ranger program, so we did it together:

We continued north and west to Minneapolis, where we will be visiting my brother and parents.

See the alternating light blue line on the trip map for today’s drive.