United States Travel Articles
Just visited TravelReporters.com and read some nice articles on various places around the world, including a write-up of Chicago that includes some highlights on sports, arts, landmarks and attractions. You can see Illinois articles here.
TravelReporters.com allows visitors to submit their own (original) travel articles. You can share your experiences, bad and good, with other travel enthusiasts around the world. They take articles relating to all countries and cities. No matter where you’ve been you can tell others what is the best about it, unmissable, or what they can skip altogether.
Save On Gas
Travelling across the United States can be costly when it comes to your wallet. In fact, I don’t think many people realize that there are a few ways out there on how you can save on gas. If you’re not familiar with this concept, gas credit cards can save you a lot of money.
Lake Algonquin
Large glacial lake that once existed in North America and covered most of the area now occupied by three Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, and Huron). Lake Algonquin was present in the Pleistocene Epoch (approximately 1.8 million to 11,800 years ago), a geologic glacial period when the Laurentide Ice Sheet was retreating northward from the Great Lakes region. The body of water, perhaps 250,000 square km (100,000 square miles) in area and with depths of up to 460 metres (1,500 feet), at various stages drained through channels that included the Trent River valley and the Mattawa, Ottawa, St. Clair, and Mississippi rivers. Remnants of the lake include Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Nipigon, Simcoe, and Nipissing.
Iowa Great Lakes
Presort area in Dickinson county, northwestern Iowa, U.S., just south of the Minnesota border. Included are Spirit (or Big Spirit), West Okoboji, East Okoboji, and Silver lakes, all of which are of glacial origin. Spirit Lake, the largest—4 miles (6 km) long and 3 miles (5 km) wide—lies just north of the town of Spirit Lake, which is the chief community of the region. West Okoboji Lake is noted for the crystalline clarity of its waters.
A number of state parks, including Mini-Wakan and Marble Beach, provide public access to the lakes, which have swimming, boating, and fishing facilities. Rich in Native American lore, the region was the scene of the so-called Spirit Lake Massacre (March 1857) of more than 30 white settlers by a band of Sioux led by Inkpaduta. The incident is commemorated by a monument (1895) marking the mass grave of the settlers and by the Gardner Log Cabin-Museum in Arnolds Park. It also provided the background for MacKinlay Kantor’s novel Spirit Lake (1961). The Spirit Lake Fish Hatchery is in Orleans just north of the town of Spirit Lake, and Hawkeye Point, at an elevation of 1,670 feet (509 metres) the highest point in the state, is about 25 miles (40 km) west in Osceola county.
Lake Michigan
Third largest of the five Great Lakes and the only one lying wholly within the U.S.
Bordered by the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, it connects with Lake Huron through the Straits of Mackinac in the north. It is 321 mi (517 km) long and up to 118 mi (190 km) wide, with a maximum depth of 923 ft (281 m); it occupies an area of 22,300 sq mi (57,757 sq km). The first European to discover it was the French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634; the explorer La Salle brought the first sailing ship there in 1679. It now attracts international shipping as part of the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway. The name is derived from the Algonquian word michigami or misschiganin, meaning “big lake.”
Great Lakes Area Lakes
Chain of deep, freshwater lakes in east-central North America comprising Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.
They are one of the great natural features of the continent and of the Earth. Although Lake Baikal in Russia has a larger volume of water, the combined area of the Great Lakes—some 94,250 square miles (244,106 square kilometres)—represents the largest surface of fresh water in the world, covering an area exceeding that of the United Kingdom.
Their drainage basin of about 295,710 square miles (which includes the areas of the lakes themselves and their connecting waterways) extends approximately 690 miles from north to south and about 860 miles from Lake Superior in the west to Lake Ontario in the east. Except for Lake Michigan, the lakes provide a natural border between Canada and the United States, a frontier that was stabilized by a boundary-waters treaty of 1909. It is a source of pride for both countries that there are no fortifications or warships along the boundary.
