{"id":18249,"date":"2025-12-22T21:03:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T02:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/?p=18249"},"modified":"2025-12-22T21:03:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T02:03:21","slug":"cahokia-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/cahokia-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Cahokia and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-18264 size-thumbnail alignright\" style=\"border: 0px; margin: 1px 2px;\" src=\"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e-150x113.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"113\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/pic01e.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>I first ran away for Christmas in 2006, and, with the exception of 2020, have done so every year since. Over time, I have become more conscious of Christmas&#8217; connection with the Winter Solstice and, in recent years, have scheduled my trip at least as much around the natural holiday as around the man-made one. That continues this year with the trip beginning at the Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site near Collinsville, Illinois. From there, I&#8217;ll head west on Historic Route 66 to at least Tulsa. Where I&#8217;ll spend Christmas, and what road I&#8217;ll be on at the time, will be revealed to me as the day approaches. The journal for the first day (i.e., Winter Solstice 2025) has been posted.<\/p>\n<p>This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is <a href=\"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/cer2025\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first ran away for Christmas in 2006, and, with the exception of 2020, have done so every year since. Over time, I have become more conscious of Christmas&#8217; connection with the Winter Solstice and, in recent years, have scheduled &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/cahokia-and-beyond\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[127],"tags":[98,41],"class_list":["post-18249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip-journal-link","tag-holiday","tag-us66"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WE0S-4Kl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18249"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18265,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18249\/revisions\/18265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dennygibson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}