A Day Trip

We took a day trip down to southern Illinois this week. We stopped at Horseshoe Lake, which my brother said is covered in lily pads (although not during the winter months). It was a nice place to get out, use the bathroom and stretch our legs. The girls played a few minutes on the playground before we jumped back into the van to finish a short drive to Cahokia Mounds.

Horseshoe Lake

Unfortunately, Cahokia Mounds is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It happened to be a Monday that we stopped by. This was our SECOND attempt to visit Cahokia Mounds. A month ago we tried to visit and the Visitor's Center closed 5 minutes after we arrived. Matthew, Key and the girls did climb to the top of Monks Mound, though, while I waited with sleeping Eli in the van. They loved hiking up to the top and said you could see the St. Louis Gateway Arch from the top of the mound. One of these days, we are going to actually spend some time at the visitors' center so we can appreciate these hand-built mounds and the native people that built them.