The Mississippi River

Here I am right next to the Mississippi river. It and the Missouri River are the longest rivers in the United States, starting in Lake Itasca in Minnesota, and ending where it pours it's waters into the Gulf of Mexico in Louisianna.

The Mississippi River is a very historic river, and serves as a boundary to the "beginning of the West" in the United States.

NOTE: that's the Julien Dubuque Bridge in the background - it connects Iowa and Illinois.