In 1986-1987 Husband and I and our son lived in far southern Indiana in a place nicknamed “The Athens of the Prairie”. We were only there for a year while Husband did his 12 month psychology internship, We were at 624 feet above sea level there.
I flew to Luverne with my son in the summer of 1987 to leave him with my mother while my dad and I drove to western ND to find a house to rent. Husband had just secured a full time job there. Luverne is 1463 feet above sea level. Winnipeg, where we moved from to Indiana is at 700 feet above sea level. Dickinson, ND, where we eventually moved, is 2460 feet above sea level. I remember being amazed at how different the sky looked in Indiana compared to Dickinson. It was as though I could pluck the clouds out of the sky in ND. We lived there from 1987 until 2025.
Husband and I are noticing differences between living in a tallgrass prairie in Luverne as opposed to a mixed grass prairie in Dickinson 1000 feet higher. The weather, humidity, and vegetation are much different. Jim Brandenburg, our local celebrity nature photographer dedicated about 1000 acres of tallgrass prairie just north of town as a nature preserve. It is named “Touch The Sky”. Look it up. It is wonderful. Much of the Twin Cities, by the way, seems to be in an oak savannah. Look that up.
Where are the highest and lowest places you went to. Ever read Giants In The Earth? Look up The Athens of The Prairie.
Trail Baboon 
Lowest, physically, is Death Valley.
I’ll need to check on the mountain road.
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I have been to the top of Mt. Whitney, in California. 14,495 feet up there. (I was 16 at the time). I didn’t make it to Furnace Creek, in Death valley, which is 135 miles away from there. I guess that the lowest I’ve ever been is standing in the waves is the Pacific Ocean.
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I’ve been lucky enough to not only go to Peru and also to Machu Picchu. The city that we stayed at closest close to Machu Picchu was Cusco, 11,152 above sea level. When you travel there as a tourist your doctor should give you altitude sickness medication with you, just in case. Fortunately, I did not experience any altitude sickness, thank goodness. One of the nights that we were in Cusco there was a huge thunderstorm, and I never looked up the physics of it, but I swear we were way closer to that lightning and thunder than I am here in Minneapolis. You could feel it rumble through you and you could hear the lightning crackle. It was terrifying yet fascinating at the same time.
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I am very susceptible to altitude sickness. My brain interprets the increase in heart rate as anxiety, and I feel as though I am having a panic attack in the mountains.
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I’ll bet nobody has nicknamed Athens the Columbus of Greece.
I’ve been at 10,000 feet or so in parts of Colorado and at the sea in various places so, I guess, sea level.
I read Giants in the Earth back when I was in junior high. I still have the book.
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There are still identified remnants of the oak savannah along the Mississippi in Minneapolis.
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There are 23 towns in the U.S. actually named Athens. Nashville is nicknamed The Athens of the South. After a while, “Athens” isn’t much of a distinction.
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Pikes Peak a few times for my high. Salton Sea for my low. Might have been a few feet lower somewhere near the Salton Sea, but it wouldn’t be any sort of landmark.
Never read the book. Columbus looks like a pleasant town to visit, if only to see the Chihuly glass sculptures. He’s cool! 🙂
Chris in Owatonna
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I, too, have been to Machu Picchu but also Puno, Peru on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The elevation there is 14,556. I did use altitude sickness meds but still had tingly fingers when we arrived in Puno. 15 minutes of oxygen at the hotel helped immensely – was fine for the rest of our stay. The lowest altitude would probably be sea level.
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