A Whirlwind U.S. Tour Trivia Quiz

Answer: Minnesota

Minnesota became the 32nd U.S. state when it joined the Union in 1858. Nicknamed the "Gopher State" (and "Land of 10,000 Lakes"), it is now the 12th-largest state, with an area about 95% the size of the United Kingdom.

The Mall of America, the USA's largest shopping complex, is located in Bloomington, Minnesota, just across I-494 from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Target Field, located in downtown Minneapolis, has been the home of the Minnesota Twins since 2010. They previously shared the Metrodome with the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL. North America's largest freshwater lake is Lake Superior: it has an average depth of 483 feet (and a maximum of 1,333 feet) and a surface area of 31,700 square miles, or a little larger than the Czech Republic. If it was a U.S. state, Lake Superior would be the 41st largest (after South Carolina).

Answer: Miami, Florida

You have dedicated friends -- they each drove from one of the furthest corners of the country to spend the weekend with you, so I hope you at least paid for dinner.

The friend from San Diego in southern California had a 1,469-mile drive to take him home. The one from Seattle had a 1,649 trip back to the Pacific northwest. Heading home to the northeast is a similar distance: it's a 1,661-mile drive back to Bean Town, Massachusetts. The friend returning to the sunny climes of Miami has the longest drive of all, with a massive 1,731 mile trip ahead of him. The photograph shows what he can expect at the end of such a lengthy trip -- the Miami skyline in blazing sunshine.

Answer: South Dakota

Little visited, even by Americans, South Dakota has plenty to offer tourists of all ages: Mount Rushmore, historic Deadwood, Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park and Crazy Horse Memorial to name but a few. Its capital, Pierre, located on the banks of the Missouri River, is the second-smallest of all state capitals (after Montpelier, Vermont), with a population of just 13,646 (2010 Census). The 17th-largest state is a little larger than Syria, but has a population (850,000 in the 2010 Census) about the same as the city of Indianapolis.

Between 1876 and 2002, the Homestake Mine at Lead (pronounced lee-d), more than a mile high in the Black Hills of southwestern South Dakota, produced 1.25 million kilograms (40 million troy ounces) of gold, more than any other mine in the Western Hemisphere. At 8,240 feet, it was also the deepest. Most of "Dances with Wolves", starring and directed by Kevin Costner, was filmed in the Badlands National Park, the Black Hills and the Belle Fourche River area in South Dakota. When I lived in Deadwood in the early 1990s, Costner's brother owned one of the many small casinos in the town: the Hollywood star would often arrive in town in his limo with someone like Clint Eastwood in tow. The Corn Palace in the city of Mitchell in southeastern South Dakota is a Moorish Revival building that attracts up to half a million visitors annually.

Answer: Ohio

The Ohio River is formed by the joining of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in Pittsburgh. Three Rivers Stadium, home of both the Steelers (NFL) and Pirates (MLB) from 1970 until 2000, overlooked this coming together and was named for it. In Cincinnati, the river passes by the site of another former sporting venue, Riverfront Stadium, home to the Bengals until 1999 and the Reds until 2002.

At Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio discharges into the significantly smaller (at that point) Mississippi River, of which it is the largest tributary by volume.

Answer: Connecticut

Connecticut is nicknamed "The Nutmeg State", although world production of this spice is dominated by Indonesia (75%) and Grenada (20%). Connecticut is also known as "The Constitution State". Equivalent to the Bahamas in area, only Rhode Island and Delaware are smaller than Connecticut, although with a population of 3.5 million (2015 estimate) only New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are more densely populated.

Founded in 1701, only Harvard in Massachusetts and William & Mary College in Virginia predate The Collegiate School (Yale University) in New Haven, Connecticut. Famous alumni include five former U.S. Presidents, William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (the latter two from the Law School). Whilst in New Haven, you could also visit the birthplace of the first Connecticut-born President, George W. Bush.

Launched in 1954 and sharing its name with the fictional vessel commanded by Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Decommissioned in 1980, the Nautilus is now preserved as a National Historic Landmark in Groton, Connecticut and attracts a quarter of a million visitors annually.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in the town of Litchfield in northwestern Connecticut. Although she grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" whilst living in Brunswick, Maine, she returned to her home state in 1873 and lived the last 23 years of her life in Hartford, Connecticut. The Harriet Beecher Stowe House, next door to Mark Twain's house, contains many items from her time there and is open to the public.

Answer: Yosemite

Established in 1890 and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite National Park is located in Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in eastern-central California. With an area of 1,169 square miles, the park is a little larger than the island of Hong Kong.

Yosemite National Park is a climber's delight, irrespective of your level of experience. At 10,916 feet, Cathedral Point is the highest point in the Cathedral Range, an offshoot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. "El Capitan", a granite monolith that rises to 7,573 feet above sea level and provides even the experienced with a highly-challenging 3,000-foot, almost vertical climb. The less-challenging Sentinel Dome, famously photographed by Ansell Adams, rises to 8,127 feet but offers even hikers a route to the top as well as an energetic day out. At 13,120 feet, Mount Lyell is the highest point in Yosemite, and Lyell Glacier is the park's largest.

Answer: Texas

America's second-largest state (after Alaska), with an area a little larger than Afghanistan, Texas is also home to more Americans than any state except California. Texas is home to three of the county's ten largest cities: Houston ranks fourth nationally, San Antonio seventh, and Dallas ninth. [California also has three cities in the top ten, Los Angeles (2nd), San Diego (8th) and San Jose (10th)]. Texas has three more cities in the next ten -- Austin, El Paso and Forth Worth.

Big Bend National Park, established in 1944, is located in south-central Texas on the north side of a 118-mile stretch of the Rio Grande and, hence, the border with Mexico. A wildlife-lover's dream, the park is home to 450 bird species, 75 different mammals and more than 50 reptiles, not to mention 1,200 plant species. The highest point in the park is Emory Peak in the Chisos Mountains, which rises to 7,832 feet above sea level.

Interstate highway I-10 enters Texas from New Mexico near to El Paso, TX, and travels 849 miles east-west across the state to the Louisiana state line near to Orange, TX. Texas is also home to more miles of interstate highway than any other state, with seventeen different interstates covering a total of 3,233 miles.

Answer: Virginia

There are two major reasons why Virginia has no major league franchise that plays within its borders. The first in the close proximity to Washington DC and its teams. The second is the reluctance to spend public money to build stadia. Franchises from the nation's capital do have facilities in Virginia: The Redskins of the NFL have their practise facilities in Richmond and their HQ in Ashburn, VA, whilst the NHL's Washington Capitals train in Ballston, VA.

Built near to 'Colonial Williamsburg' in James County in southeastern Virginia, the Kingsmill Resort now hosts the LPGA Kingsmill Championship which succeeded the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill. The AAA Norfolk Tides ended a 38-year association with the New York Mets in 2007 in order to become the major farm team for the Baltimore Orioles. Both the Virginia Cavaliers (located in Charlottesville, VA) and the Virginia Tech Hokies (Blacksburg, VA) are part of the highly-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference, a Division One collegiate conference.

Answer: Colorado

Established as the 38th state less than a month after the U.S. had celebrated its 100th anniversary, Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State". Equivalent in size to New Zealand, if it was a country Colorado would be the 76th largest in the world.

Although Mount Elbert (14,400 feet) is not the highest point in the nation, Colorado's mountainous nature is highlighted by having the highest low point of any state -- the lowest point in the entire state is still 3,317 feet above sea level, which is higher than the highest point in 18 of the 50 states.

Rising 14,115 feet above sea level just a few miles southwest of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Pikes Peak is the highest point in the southern Front Range of the Rockies. No point further east within the U.S is higher. It was named after the general and explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813): a glorious first name and surely unique amongst famous people, or perhaps you know of another...

Colorado Springs is also the location of the U.S. Air Force Academy. The first students graduated from here in 1959, so too late for the Apollo astronauts, but it has since produced many of the pilots, commanders and mission specialists for the Space Shuttle program. Curiously, the Academy is also a major tourist attraction with more than one million visitors annually.

At the western end of Colorado, you will find the 48-mile long canyon through which the Gunnison River passes. The 12-mile stretch of this gorge that passes through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is named because the canyon is so steep that parts of it received an average of little more than a half hour of sunlight per day.

Answer: Columbus, Ohio

Ohio became the 17th state in 1803 and it was decided to relocate the capital to the new, central city of Columbus in 1816. In 1839, work began on a new State Capitol building and it then took more than twenty years to build the Ohio Statehouse, which opened in 1861. It was designated as a National Historic Place in 1972.

The LeVeque Tower is no longer the tallest building in Columbus; it was overtaken by the Rhodes State Office Tower in 1974. Exactly one foot taller than the Washington Monument, it was the tallest manmade structure between New York City and Chicago when it was built in the mid-1920s.

Founded in 1994, the Columbus Crew Soccer Club won the MLS Cup in 2008. Members of the Eastern Conference, they were conference playoff champions in both 2008 and 2015. They moved into the custom-built Columbus Crew Stadium (renamed Mapfre Stadium in 2015) in 1999.