Tennessee through Florida; September 21
– December 31, 2014
Ok. Since I've been so lazy and am so
far behind, we didn't do a whole lot of new stuff, and it was mostly
places we've been, I'm going to call this a speed-blog entry...
After leaving Kentucky, we stayed at
Cedar Creek USACE park again. We had a charm of hummingbirds (that's
what I learned you call a bunch of them) with us the entire time and
they were fun, as always, to watch. I broke down and bought a nice
pot of mums and Rich brought home a pumpkin – we were ready for
Fall!
Our next stop was a short one in a new
to us, camp – three nights – at Old Stone Fort State Park,
Manchester, TN. We toured the Dickel factory, which was educational
and tasty. The next day we started out to hike a path to the Old
Stone Fort, which was actually a ceremonial gathering place for
Native Americans around AD 500 and was used for about 500 years.
Sadly the weather did not cooperate - it was (and had been) raining
and the trail was flooded (wha wasn't flooded was muddy and
slippery), so we bought some Christmas presents for the grand-kids at
the visitor's center and went back to the RV to chill. The campground
was pretty, in a rough way: sites were overgrown by vegetation and
the restrooms could have used a big renovation but we'd like to go
back to do the trail and check out the fort.
From Tennessee we headed to two Army
Corps parks in Mississippi (again the first time for us): Hernando
Point and Leroy Percy.
Hernando Point: I took no photos and
our expenditures show only one trip to town during the week for fresh
veggies and milk. It's pretty safe to say we stuck close to camp that
week and camp must not have been too interesting.
Leroy Percy, near Hollandale, MS, was
very quiet – just a few folks there during our week-long stay and
fairly spread out. We took some nice walks out to well-maintained
dock on the river and down the poorly maintained road to the cabins,
and ended up in Greenville, a city of 33,000, several times – the
first right after we arrived for drinking water.
At the campground, we were told about
the Winterville Mounds, a 43 acre site featuring 12 (of the original
23) prehistoric Naive American mounds, two large plazas and had been
a thriving settlement from around A.D. 1000 to 1450. (Stop and think
– the Pilgrims landed in 1622. That means Winterville Mounds was a
working community for more than 50 years longer than since the
pilgrims arrived in America!)
We spent a good bit of time in the
museum, then walked back to the mounds. I wandered around for quite a
while – awe struck by the sheer size of the mounds and thinking
about the seemingly unending, back-breaking work of building them,
which took millions of cubic feet of earth. Never mind laying out the
23 mounds on the 43 acre site with no maps, surveying equipment, or
elevated area to get the lay of the land - which probably was
overgrown with trees, bushes, and vines. Imagine digging a basketful
of dirt from from as far as 16 miles away, hauling it back to
whichever mound you were working on, climbing up the mound, dumping
the earth, then stamping down the freshly added soil. Eventually a
defensive trench was dug around the perimeter of the area, the inside
top edge of the trench lined with tall, sharpened spikes to repel
invaders. Throughout the years of use, existing structures would be
burned, more soil added, and new structures built. I took lots of
photos but somehow have mis-filed the on my computer or deleted them
in error :(
I sent a query to the Winterville Mound
Historical Site, saying I wanted to try to get some idea of the
quantity of dirt that had to be moved to make the mounds and (s)he
gave me a wonderfully complete response – down to the number of
days it would take one worker to move enough earth to make the
largest mound. Here is the response:
“To
call it effort is true! To carry a woven basket filled with dirt/clay
weighing approximately 40-50 lbs from the source area and place it in
the location that the "mound contractor" (to put them in a
modern context) desired to achieve their architectural design, and to
repeat the process again and again...that is some dedication!
If one worker were to spend 30 minutes collecting , carrying, and dumping each basket, and spent 8 hours a day at work, it would take him 36 days to construct this small mound (8 hrs x 2 baskets per hr = 16 baskets per day; 16 baskets x 36 days = 576 baskets).
The biggest mound here at Winterville (Mound A) is approximately 300' x 325' x 55' tall. That equates into 5,362,500 cubic feet, which equals 3,575,000 baskets of dirt!
So, if we were to use the same poor worker to build Mound A, toting 16 baskets each day, it will take him 223,437 days which equals out to 612 years total time!!!
I guess he can just forget about any retirement plans!
I hope this answer helps you!”
I know I'm a dork, but I found this
fascinating and extended my thanks to the author.
On my way back to the visitor's center,
I stopped and talked to a man who was painting the little bridge and
of course, asked him about good local food. His suggestion: the Hot
Tamale Festival was due to start in a couple of days and, you guessed
it, we went. It was quite a popular local festival held in a downtown
parking lot a spilling out into the streets. Bands, booths selling
everything you could think of, and more tamale vendors than we could
try. It happened that the man I talked to had a friend in the
competition and of all the ones we tried, his were best, but sadly,
they couldn't come close to the wonderful tamales we got at a
farmer's market in Colorado Springs.
The other high-point during our stay
was Scoops Ice Cream and Grill in Greenville. We had shrimp po' boys
and ice cream a couple of times and once just got ice cream cones.
Yum! I could eat good ice cream any time. ( In fact, I remember one
time in January in Pine Mountain, GA when we got a pint of Blue Bell
homemade vanilla and sat in the truck in freezing weather to enjoy
the last Blue Bell until our next trip into Georgia, since at that
time, Blue Bell wasn't sold in Florida.)
Our next stop was Lake Bruin State
Park, St. Joseph, LA, our first time in this park as well. When we
found our site, it was obvious we had never been there before – our
site was lousy, but the surroundings were beautiful and the weather
was nice, so it all worked out.
We were only about 4 miles from the
nearest town but with only 1,100 people, the shopping was limited to
milk, eggs, and the like. The next nearest town was larger – 1,227
folks, and the shopping was about the same. We did drive to Natchez,
MS (about 60 miles) to do some grocery shopping, have lunch, and
visit the Natchez Trace Visitor's Center. It was a good day and we
enjoyed the visitor's center, as well as our lunch at Fat Mama's
Tamales. The sunsets we had at Lake Bruin were some of the most
spectacular I've ever seen and I imagine we'll be back, although to a
different site :).
From there, it was on to our customary
stop at Tickfaw to restock on Jerry Lee's boudin, take care of
laundry, do some maintenance and cleaning, and stock up on groceries,
etc. Once we left Tickfaw, it was back to Florida with a quick stop
at Blackwater River, and on to Paynes Prairie for our annual
checkups, and to get the truck worked on. You might remember that we
had some work done in Michigan that left us with a diesel exhaust
leak. We took the truck in to Gainesville Chevy, and since it was
going to take a day or so, rented a car. What a mess. While the
mechanic did a good job with the repair, management was not. After
much discussion and stalling on their part, we ended up paying a
second time for the work, then calling General Motors. After sending
in receipts and detailing the entire fiasco, we got a check from GM
for the entire bill.
It was on to Silver Springs State Park,
where we caught up with my nephew Matt and his wife Laura, as well as
our friend Lori. It was also time to take Dickens in for surgery to
remove some lumps. He's 13, and has some trouble with his hind legs,
but should have a couple of good years left. Since he's like part of
my soul, we couldn't see not having it done, in spite of the
degenerative nerve problem in his hind legs. Although the first night
out of surgery was tough, he came through it very well and we were
relieved.
Next we moved to Rodman State Park near
Palatka, FL and while there, my son Rick drove down from Jacksonville
for the day and brought his little girl, Emilia. His wife, Sam had to
work, sadly, but they will be moving into our house as sitters in
January, so will see her then. Thanksgiving day we drove down to
Plant City to see my daughter Beth and her family – it was a long
drive, but worth every minute.
It's nearly Christmas by this time, so
we moved to Stephen Foster in White Springs for their spectacular
Christmas light show. Both kids and families came by and spent time,
and Beth and her family were able to stay for the lights, model
trains, and hammered dulcimer music. After that we got to babysit
Emilia while Rick worked, then went back to help him pack and load
for the move. It was great and we had a wonderful time, but had to
get back to Gainesville to spend time at the house.
In spite of the rough spots throughout
the year, it has been one of the best we've ever had and are thankful
for all the good times. Now we are excited to see what awaits us in
2015.Tennessee through Florida; September 21
– December 31, 2014
Ok. Since I've been so lazy and am so
far behind, we didn't do a whole lot of new stuff, and it was mostly
places we've been, I'm going to call this a speed-blog entry...
After leaving Kentucky, we stayed at
Cedar Creek USACE park again. We had a charm of hummingbirds (that's
what I learned you call a bunch of them) with us the entire time and
they were fun, as always, to watch. I broke down and bought a nice
pot of mums and Rich brought home a pumpkin – we were ready for
Fall!
Our next stop was a short one in a new
to us, camp – three nights – at Old Stone Fort State Park,
Manchester, TN. We toured the Dickel factory, which was educational
and tasty. The next day we started out to hike a path to the Old
Stone Fort, which was actually a ceremonial gathering place for
Native Americans around AD 500 and was used for about 500 years.
Sadly the weather did not cooperate - it was (and had been) raining
and the trail was flooded (wha wasn't flooded was muddy and
slippery), so we bought some Christmas presents for the grand-kids at
the visitor's center and went back to the RV to chill. The campground
was pretty, in a rough way: sites were overgrown by vegetation and
the restrooms could have used a big renovation but we'd like to go
back to do the trail and check out the fort.
From Tennessee we headed to two Army
Corps parks in Mississippi (again the first time for us): Hernando
Point and Leroy Percy.
Hernando Point: I took no photos and
our expenditures show only one trip to town during the week for fresh
veggies and milk. It's pretty safe to say we stuck close to camp that
week and camp must not have been too interesting.
Leroy Percy, near Hollandale, MS, was
very quiet – just a few folks there during our week-long stay and
fairly spread out. We took some nice walks out to well-maintained
dock on the river and down the poorly maintained road to the cabins,
and ended up in Greenville, a city of 33,000, several times – the
first right after we arrived for drinking water.
At the campground, we were told about
the Winterville Mounds, a 43 acre site featuring 12 (of the original
23) prehistoric Naive American mounds, two large plazas and had been
a thriving settlement from around A.D. 1000 to 1450. (Stop and think
– the Pilgrims landed in 1622. That means Winterville Mounds was a
working community for more than 50 years longer than since the
pilgrims arrived in America!)
We spent a good bit of time in the
museum, then walked back to the mounds. I wandered around for quite a
while – awe struck by the sheer size of the mounds and thinking
about the seemingly unending, back-breaking work of building them,
which took millions of cubic feet of earth. Never mind laying out the
23 mounds on the 43 acre site with no maps, surveying equipment, or
elevated area to get the lay of the land - which probably was
overgrown with trees, bushes, and vines. Imagine digging a basketful
of dirt from from as far as 16 miles away, hauling it back to
whichever mound you were working on, climbing up the mound, dumping
the earth, then stamping down the freshly added soil. Eventually a
defensive trench was dug around the perimeter of the area, the inside
top edge of the trench lined with tall, sharpened spikes to repel
invaders. Throughout the years of use, existing structures would be
burned, more soil added, and new structures built. I took lots of
photos but somehow have mis-filed the on my computer or deleted them
in error :(
I sent a query to the Winterville Mound
Historical Site, saying I wanted to try to get some idea of the
quantity of dirt that had to be moved to make the mounds and (s)he
gave me a wonderfully complete response – down to the number of
days it would take one worker to move enough earth to make the
largest mound. Here is the response:
“To
call it effort is true! To carry a woven basket filled with dirt/clay
weighing approximately 40-50 lbs from the source area and place it in
the location that the "mound contractor" (to put them in a
modern context) desired to achieve their architectural design, and to
repeat the process again and again...that is some dedication!
If one worker were to spend 30 minutes collecting , carrying, and dumping each basket, and spent 8 hours a day at work, it would take him 36 days to construct this small mound (8 hrs x 2 baskets per hr = 16 baskets per day; 16 baskets x 36 days = 576 baskets).
The biggest mound here at Winterville (Mound A) is approximately 300' x 325' x 55' tall. That equates into 5,362,500 cubic feet, which equals 3,575,000 baskets of dirt!
So, if we were to use the same poor worker to build Mound A, toting 16 baskets each day, it will take him 223,437 days which equals out to 612 years total time!!!
I guess he can just forget about any retirement plans!
I hope this answer helps you!”
I know I'm a dork, but I found this
fascinating and extended my thanks to the author.
On my way back to the visitor's center,
I stopped and talked to a man who was painting the little bridge and
of course, asked him about good local food. His suggestion: the Hot
Tamale Festival was due to start in a couple of days and, you guessed
it, we went. It was quite a popular local festival held in a downtown
parking lot a spilling out into the streets. Bands, booths selling
everything you could think of, and more tamale vendors than we could
try. It happened that the man I talked to had a friend in the
competition and of all the ones we tried, his were best, but sadly,
they couldn't come close to the wonderful tamales we got at a
farmer's market in Colorado Springs.
The other high-point during our stay
was Scoops Ice Cream and Grill in Greenville. We had shrimp po' boys
and ice cream a couple of times and once just got ice cream cones.
Yum! I could eat good ice cream any time. ( In fact, I remember one
time in January in Pine Mountain, GA when we got a pint of Blue Bell
homemade vanilla and sat in the truck in freezing weather to enjoy
the last Blue Bell until our next trip into Georgia, since at that
time, Blue Bell wasn't sold in Florida.)
Our next stop was Lake Bruin State
Park, St. Joseph, LA, our first time in this park as well. When we
found our site, it was obvious we had never been there before – our
site was lousy, but the surroundings were beautiful and the weather
was nice, so it all worked out.
We were only about 4 miles from the
nearest town but with only 1,100 people, the shopping was limited to
milk, eggs, and the like. The next nearest town was larger – 1,227
folks, and the shopping was about the same. We did drive to Natchez,
MS (about 60 miles) to do some grocery shopping, have lunch, and
visit the Natchez Trace Visitor's Center. It was a good day and we
enjoyed the visitor's center, as well as our lunch at Fat Mama's
Tamales. The sunsets we had at Lake Bruin were some of the most
spectacular I've ever seen and I imagine we'll be back, although to a
different site :).
From there, it was on to our customary
stop at Tickfaw to restock on Jerry Lee's boudin, take care of
laundry, do some maintenance and cleaning, and stock up on groceries,
etc. Once we left Tickfaw, it was back to Florida with a quick stop
at Blackwater River, and on to Paynes Prairie for our annual
checkups, and to get the truck worked on. You might remember that we
had some work done in Michigan that left us with a diesel exhaust
leak. We took the truck in to Gainesville Chevy, and since it was
going to take a day or so, rented a car. What a mess. While the
mechanic did a good job with the repair, management was not. After
much discussion and stalling on their part, we ended up paying a
second time for the work, then calling General Motors. After sending
in receipts and detailing the entire fiasco, we got a check from GM
for the entire bill.
It was on to Silver Springs State Park,
where we caught up with my nephew Matt and his wife Laura, as well as
our friend Lori. It was also time to take Dickens in for surgery to
remove some lumps. He's 13, and has some trouble with his hind legs,
but should have a couple of good years left. Since he's like part of
my soul, we couldn't see not having it done, in spite of the
degenerative nerve problem in his hind legs. Although the first night
out of surgery was tough, he came through it very well and we were
relieved.
Next we moved to Rodman State Park near
Palatka, FL and while there, my son Rick drove down from Jacksonville
for the day and brought his little girl, Emilia. His wife, Sam had to
work, sadly, but they will be moving into our house as sitters in
January, so will see her then. Thanksgiving day we drove down to
Plant City to see my daughter Beth and her family – it was a long
drive, but worth every minute.
It's nearly Christmas by this time, so
we moved to Stephen Foster in White Springs for their spectacular
Christmas light show. Both kids and families came by and spent time,
and Beth and her family were able to stay for the lights, model
trains, and hammered dulcimer music. After that we got to babysit
Emilia while Rick worked, then went back to help him pack and load
for the move. It was great and we had a wonderful time, but had to
get back to Gainesville to spend time at the house.
In spite of the rough spots throughout
the year, it has been one of the best we've ever had and are thankful
for all the good times. Now we are excited to see what awaits us in
2015.Tennessee through Florida; September 21
– December 31, 2014
Ok. Since I've been so lazy and am so
far behind, we didn't do a whole lot of new stuff, and it was mostly
places we've been, I'm going to call this a speed-blog entry...
After leaving Kentucky, we stayed at
Cedar Creek USACE park again. We had a charm of hummingbirds (that's
what I learned you call a bunch of them) with us the entire time and
they were fun, as always, to watch. I broke down and bought a nice
pot of mums and Rich brought home a pumpkin – we were ready for
Fall!
Our next stop was a short one in a new
to us, camp – three nights – at Old Stone Fort State Park,
Manchester, TN. We toured the Dickel factory, which was educational
and tasty. The next day we started out to hike a path to the Old
Stone Fort, which was actually a ceremonial gathering place for
Native Americans around AD 500 and was used for about 500 years.
Sadly the weather did not cooperate - it was (and had been) raining
and the trail was flooded (wha wasn't flooded was muddy and
slippery), so we bought some Christmas presents for the grand-kids at
the visitor's center and went back to the RV to chill. The campground
was pretty, in a rough way: sites were overgrown by vegetation and
the restrooms could have used a big renovation but we'd like to go
back to do the trail and check out the fort.
From Tennessee we headed to two Army
Corps parks in Mississippi (again the first time for us): Hernando
Point and Leroy Percy.
Hernando Point: I took no photos and
our expenditures show only one trip to town during the week for fresh
veggies and milk. It's pretty safe to say we stuck close to camp that
week and camp must not have been too interesting.
Leroy Percy, near Hollandale, MS, was
very quiet – just a few folks there during our week-long stay and
fairly spread out. We took some nice walks out to well-maintained
dock on the river and down the poorly maintained road to the cabins,
and ended up in Greenville, a city of 33,000, several times – the
first right after we arrived for drinking water.
At the campground, we were told about
the Winterville Mounds, a 43 acre site featuring 12 (of the original
23) prehistoric Naive American mounds, two large plazas and had been
a thriving settlement from around A.D. 1000 to 1450. (Stop and think
– the Pilgrims landed in 1622. That means Winterville Mounds was a
working community for more than 50 years longer than since the
pilgrims arrived in America!)
We spent a good bit of time in the
museum, then walked back to the mounds. I wandered around for quite a
while – awe struck by the sheer size of the mounds and thinking
about the seemingly unending, back-breaking work of building them,
which took millions of cubic feet of earth. Never mind laying out the
23 mounds on the 43 acre site with no maps, surveying equipment, or
elevated area to get the lay of the land - which probably was
overgrown with trees, bushes, and vines. Imagine digging a basketful
of dirt from from as far as 16 miles away, hauling it back to
whichever mound you were working on, climbing up the mound, dumping
the earth, then stamping down the freshly added soil. Eventually a
defensive trench was dug around the perimeter of the area, the inside
top edge of the trench lined with tall, sharpened spikes to repel
invaders. Throughout the years of use, existing structures would be
burned, more soil added, and new structures built. I took lots of
photos but somehow have mis-filed the on my computer or deleted them
in error :(
I sent a query to the Winterville Mound
Historical Site, saying I wanted to try to get some idea of the
quantity of dirt that had to be moved to make the mounds and (s)he
gave me a wonderfully complete response – down to the number of
days it would take one worker to move enough earth to make the
largest mound. Here is the response:
“To
call it effort is true! To carry a woven basket filled with dirt/clay
weighing approximately 40-50 lbs from the source area and place it in
the location that the "mound contractor" (to put them in a
modern context) desired to achieve their architectural design, and to
repeat the process again and again...that is some dedication!
If one worker were to spend 30 minutes collecting , carrying, and dumping each basket, and spent 8 hours a day at work, it would take him 36 days to construct this small mound (8 hrs x 2 baskets per hr = 16 baskets per day; 16 baskets x 36 days = 576 baskets).
The biggest mound here at Winterville (Mound A) is approximately 300' x 325' x 55' tall. That equates into 5,362,500 cubic feet, which equals 3,575,000 baskets of dirt!
So, if we were to use the same poor worker to build Mound A, toting 16 baskets each day, it will take him 223,437 days which equals out to 612 years total time!!!
I guess he can just forget about any retirement plans!
I hope this answer helps you!”
I know I'm a dork, but I found this
fascinating and extended my thanks to the author.
On my way back to the visitor's center,
I stopped and talked to a man who was painting the little bridge and
of course, asked him about good local food. His suggestion: the Hot
Tamale Festival was due to start in a couple of days and, you guessed
it, we went. It was quite a popular local festival held in a downtown
parking lot a spilling out into the streets. Bands, booths selling
everything you could think of, and more tamale vendors than we could
try. It happened that the man I talked to had a friend in the
competition and of all the ones we tried, his were best, but sadly,
they couldn't come close to the wonderful tamales we got at a
farmer's market in Colorado Springs.
The other high-point during our stay
was Scoops Ice Cream and Grill in Greenville. We had shrimp po' boys
and ice cream a couple of times and once just got ice cream cones.
Yum! I could eat good ice cream any time. ( In fact, I remember one
time in January in Pine Mountain, GA when we got a pint of Blue Bell
homemade vanilla and sat in the truck in freezing weather to enjoy
the last Blue Bell until our next trip into Georgia, since at that
time, Blue Bell wasn't sold in Florida.)
Our next stop was Lake Bruin State
Park, St. Joseph, LA, our first time in this park as well. When we
found our site, it was obvious we had never been there before – our
site was lousy, but the surroundings were beautiful and the weather
was nice, so it all worked out.
We were only about 4 miles from the
nearest town but with only 1,100 people, the shopping was limited to
milk, eggs, and the like. The next nearest town was larger – 1,227
folks, and the shopping was about the same. We did drive to Natchez,
MS (about 60 miles) to do some grocery shopping, have lunch, and
visit the Natchez Trace Visitor's Center. It was a good day and we
enjoyed the visitor's center, as well as our lunch at Fat Mama's
Tamales. The sunsets we had at Lake Bruin were some of the most
spectacular I've ever seen and I imagine we'll be back, although to a
different site :).
From there, it was on to our customary
stop at Tickfaw to restock on Jerry Lee's boudin, take care of
laundry, do some maintenance and cleaning, and stock up on groceries,
etc. Once we left Tickfaw, it was back to Florida with a quick stop
at Blackwater River, and on to Paynes Prairie for our annual
checkups, and to get the truck worked on. You might remember that we
had some work done in Michigan that left us with a diesel exhaust
leak. We took the truck in to Gainesville Chevy, and since it was
going to take a day or so, rented a car. What a mess. While the
mechanic did a good job with the repair, management was not. After
much discussion and stalling on their part, we ended up paying a
second time for the work, then calling General Motors. After sending
in receipts and detailing the entire fiasco, we got a check from GM
for the entire bill.
It was on to Silver Springs State Park,
where we caught up with my nephew Matt and his wife Laura, as well as
our friend Lori. It was also time to take Dickens in for surgery to
remove some lumps. He's 13, and has some trouble with his hind legs,
but should have a couple of good years left. Since he's like part of
my soul, we couldn't see not having it done, in spite of the
degenerative nerve problem in his hind legs. Although the first night
out of surgery was tough, he came through it very well and we were
relieved.
Next we moved to Rodman State Park near
Palatka, FL and while there, my son Rick drove down from Jacksonville
for the day and brought his little girl, Emilia. His wife, Sam had to
work, sadly, but they will be moving into our house as sitters in
January, so will see her then. Thanksgiving day we drove down to
Plant City to see my daughter Beth and her family – it was a long
drive, but worth every minute.
It's nearly Christmas by this time, so
we moved to Stephen Foster in White Springs for their spectacular
Christmas light show. Both kids and families came by and spent time,
and Beth and her family were able to stay for the lights, model
trains, and hammered dulcimer music. After that we got to babysit
Emilia while Rick worked, then went back to help him pack and load
for the move. It was great and we had a wonderful time, but had to
get back to Gainesville to spend time at the house.
In spite of the rough spots throughout
the year, it has been one of the best we've ever had and are thankful
for all the good times. Now we are excited to see what awaits us in
2015.Tennessee through Florida; September 21
– December 31, 2014
Ok. Since I've been so lazy and am so
far behind, we didn't do a whole lot of new stuff, and it was mostly
places we've been, I'm going to call this a speed-blog entry...
After leaving Kentucky, we stayed at
Cedar Creek USACE park again. We had a charm of hummingbirds (that's
what I learned you call a bunch of them) with us the entire time and
they were fun, as always, to watch. I broke down and bought a nice
pot of mums and Rich brought home a pumpkin – we were ready for
Fall!
Our next stop was a short one in a new
to us, camp – three nights – at Old Stone Fort State Park,
Manchester, TN. We toured the Dickel factory, which was educational
and tasty. The next day we started out to hike a path to the Old
Stone Fort, which was actually a ceremonial gathering place for
Native Americans around AD 500 and was used for about 500 years.
Sadly the weather did not cooperate - it was (and had been) raining
and the trail was flooded (wha wasn't flooded was muddy and
slippery), so we bought some Christmas presents for the grand-kids at
the visitor's center and went back to the RV to chill. The campground
was pretty, in a rough way: sites were overgrown by vegetation and
the restrooms could have used a big renovation but we'd like to go
back to do the trail and check out the fort.
From Tennessee we headed to two Army
Corps parks in Mississippi (again the first time for us): Hernando
Point and Leroy Percy.
Hernando Point: I took no photos and
our expenditures show only one trip to town during the week for fresh
veggies and milk. It's pretty safe to say we stuck close to camp that
week and camp must not have been too interesting.
Leroy Percy, near Hollandale, MS, was
very quiet – just a few folks there during our week-long stay and
fairly spread out. We took some nice walks out to well-maintained
dock on the river and down the poorly maintained road to the cabins,
and ended up in Greenville, a city of 33,000, several times – the
first right after we arrived for drinking water.
At the campground, we were told about
the Winterville Mounds, a 43 acre site featuring 12 (of the original
23) prehistoric Naive American mounds, two large plazas and had been
a thriving settlement from around A.D. 1000 to 1450. (Stop and think
– the Pilgrims landed in 1622. That means Winterville Mounds was a
working community for more than 50 years longer than since the
pilgrims arrived in America!)
We spent a good bit of time in the
museum, then walked back to the mounds. I wandered around for quite a
while – awe struck by the sheer size of the mounds and thinking
about the seemingly unending, back-breaking work of building them,
which took millions of cubic feet of earth. Never mind laying out the
23 mounds on the 43 acre site with no maps, surveying equipment, or
elevated area to get the lay of the land - which probably was
overgrown with trees, bushes, and vines. Imagine digging a basketful
of dirt from from as far as 16 miles away, hauling it back to
whichever mound you were working on, climbing up the mound, dumping
the earth, then stamping down the freshly added soil. Eventually a
defensive trench was dug around the perimeter of the area, the inside
top edge of the trench lined with tall, sharpened spikes to repel
invaders. Throughout the years of use, existing structures would be
burned, more soil added, and new structures built. I took lots of
photos but somehow have mis-filed the on my computer or deleted them
in error :(
I sent a query to the Winterville Mound
Historical Site, saying I wanted to try to get some idea of the
quantity of dirt that had to be moved to make the mounds and (s)he
gave me a wonderfully complete response – down to the number of
days it would take one worker to move enough earth to make the
largest mound. Here is the response:
“To
call it effort is true! To carry a woven basket filled with dirt/clay
weighing approximately 40-50 lbs from the source area and place it in
the location that the "mound contractor" (to put them in a
modern context) desired to achieve their architectural design, and to
repeat the process again and again...that is some dedication!
If one worker were to spend 30 minutes collecting , carrying, and dumping each basket, and spent 8 hours a day at work, it would take him 36 days to construct this small mound (8 hrs x 2 baskets per hr = 16 baskets per day; 16 baskets x 36 days = 576 baskets).
The biggest mound here at Winterville (Mound A) is approximately 300' x 325' x 55' tall. That equates into 5,362,500 cubic feet, which equals 3,575,000 baskets of dirt!
So, if we were to use the same poor worker to build Mound A, toting 16 baskets each day, it will take him 223,437 days which equals out to 612 years total time!!!
I guess he can just forget about any retirement plans!
I hope this answer helps you!”
I know I'm a dork, but I found this
fascinating and extended my thanks to the author.
On my way back to the visitor's center,
I stopped and talked to a man who was painting the little bridge and
of course, asked him about good local food. His suggestion: the Hot
Tamale Festival was due to start in a couple of days and, you guessed
it, we went. It was quite a popular local festival held in a downtown
parking lot a spilling out into the streets. Bands, booths selling
everything you could think of, and more tamale vendors than we could
try. It happened that the man I talked to had a friend in the
competition and of all the ones we tried, his were best, but sadly,
they couldn't come close to the wonderful tamales we got at a
farmer's market in Colorado Springs.
The other high-point during our stay
was Scoops Ice Cream and Grill in Greenville. We had shrimp po' boys
and ice cream a couple of times and once just got ice cream cones.
Yum! I could eat good ice cream any time. ( In fact, I remember one
time in January in Pine Mountain, GA when we got a pint of Blue Bell
homemade vanilla and sat in the truck in freezing weather to enjoy
the last Blue Bell until our next trip into Georgia, since at that
time, Blue Bell wasn't sold in Florida.)
Our next stop was Lake Bruin State
Park, St. Joseph, LA, our first time in this park as well. When we
found our site, it was obvious we had never been there before – our
site was lousy, but the surroundings were beautiful and the weather
was nice, so it all worked out.
We were only about 4 miles from the
nearest town but with only 1,100 people, the shopping was limited to
milk, eggs, and the like. The next nearest town was larger – 1,227
folks, and the shopping was about the same. We did drive to Natchez,
MS (about 60 miles) to do some grocery shopping, have lunch, and
visit the Natchez Trace Visitor's Center. It was a good day and we
enjoyed the visitor's center, as well as our lunch at Fat Mama's
Tamales. The sunsets we had at Lake Bruin were some of the most
spectacular I've ever seen and I imagine we'll be back, although to a
different site :).
From there, it was on to our customary
stop at Tickfaw to restock on Jerry Lee's boudin, take care of
laundry, do some maintenance and cleaning, and stock up on groceries,
etc. Once we left Tickfaw, it was back to Florida with a quick stop
at Blackwater River, and on to Paynes Prairie for our annual
checkups, and to get the truck worked on. You might remember that we
had some work done in Michigan that left us with a diesel exhaust
leak. We took the truck in to Gainesville Chevy, and since it was
going to take a day or so, rented a car. What a mess. While the
mechanic did a good job with the repair, management was not. After
much discussion and stalling on their part, we ended up paying a
second time for the work, then calling General Motors. After sending
in receipts and detailing the entire fiasco, we got a check from GM
for the entire bill.
It was on to Silver Springs State Park,
where we caught up with my nephew Matt and his wife Laura, as well as
our friend Lori. It was also time to take Dickens in for surgery to
remove some lumps. He's 13, and has some trouble with his hind legs,
but should have a couple of good years left. Since he's like part of
my soul, we couldn't see not having it done, in spite of the
degenerative nerve problem in his hind legs. Although the first night
out of surgery was tough, he came through it very well and we were
relieved.
Next we moved to Rodman State Park near
Palatka, FL and while there, my son Rick drove down from Jacksonville
for the day and brought his little girl, Emilia. His wife, Sam had to
work, sadly, but they will be moving into our house as sitters in
January, so will see her then. Thanksgiving day we drove down to
Plant City to see my daughter Beth and her family – it was a long
drive, but worth every minute.
It's nearly Christmas by this time, so
we moved to Stephen Foster in White Springs for their spectacular
Christmas light show. Both kids and families came by and spent time,
and Beth and her family were able to stay for the lights, model
trains, and hammered dulcimer music. After that we got to babysit
Emilia while Rick worked, then went back to help him pack and load
for the move. It was great and we had a wonderful time, but had to
get back to Gainesville to spend time at the house.
In spite of the rough spots throughout
the year, it has been one of the best we've ever had and are thankful
for all the good times. Now we are excited to see what awaits us in
2015.Tennessee through Florida; September 21
– December 31, 2014
Ok. Since I've been so lazy and am so
far behind, we didn't do a whole lot of new stuff, and it was mostly
places we've been, I'm going to call this a speed-blog entry...
After leaving Kentucky, we stayed at
Cedar Creek USACE park again. We had a charm of hummingbirds (that's
what I learned you call a bunch of them) with us the entire time and
they were fun, as always, to watch. I broke down and bought a nice
pot of mums and Rich brought home a pumpkin – we were ready for
Fall!
Our next stop was a short one in a new
to us, camp – three nights – at Old Stone Fort State Park,
Manchester, TN. We toured the Dickel factory, which was educational
and tasty. The next day we started out to hike a path to the Old
Stone Fort, which was actually a ceremonial gathering place for
Native Americans around AD 500 and was used for about 500 years.
Sadly the weather did not cooperate - it was (and had been) raining
and the trail was flooded (wha wasn't flooded was muddy and
slippery), so we bought some Christmas presents for the grand-kids at
the visitor's center and went back to the RV to chill. The campground
was pretty, in a rough way: sites were overgrown by vegetation and
the restrooms could have used a big renovation but we'd like to go
back to do the trail and check out the fort.
From Tennessee we headed to two Army
Corps parks in Mississippi (again the first time for us): Hernando
Point and Leroy Percy.
Hernando Point: I took no photos and
our expenditures show only one trip to town during the week for fresh
veggies and milk. It's pretty safe to say we stuck close to camp that
week and camp must not have been too interesting.
Leroy Percy, near Hollandale, MS, was
very quiet – just a few folks there during our week-long stay and
fairly spread out. We took some nice walks out to well-maintained
dock on the river and down the poorly maintained road to the cabins,
and ended up in Greenville, a city of 33,000, several times – the
first right after we arrived for drinking water.
At the campground, we were told about
the Winterville Mounds, a 43 acre site featuring 12 (of the original
23) prehistoric Naive American mounds, two large plazas and had been
a thriving settlement from around A.D. 1000 to 1450. (Stop and think
– the Pilgrims landed in 1622. That means Winterville Mounds was a
working community for more than 50 years longer than since the
pilgrims arrived in America!)
We spent a good bit of time in the
museum, then walked back to the mounds. I wandered around for quite a
while – awe struck by the sheer size of the mounds and thinking
about the seemingly unending, back-breaking work of building them,
which took millions of cubic feet of earth. Never mind laying out the
23 mounds on the 43 acre site with no maps, surveying equipment, or
elevated area to get the lay of the land - which probably was
overgrown with trees, bushes, and vines. Imagine digging a basketful
of dirt from from as far as 16 miles away, hauling it back to
whichever mound you were working on, climbing up the mound, dumping
the earth, then stamping down the freshly added soil. Eventually a
defensive trench was dug around the perimeter of the area, the inside
top edge of the trench lined with tall, sharpened spikes to repel
invaders. Throughout the years of use, existing structures would be
burned, more soil added, and new structures built. I took lots of
photos but somehow have mis-filed the on my computer or deleted them
in error :(
I sent a query to the Winterville Mound
Historical Site, saying I wanted to try to get some idea of the
quantity of dirt that had to be moved to make the mounds and (s)he
gave me a wonderfully complete response – down to the number of
days it would take one worker to move enough earth to make the
largest mound. Here is the response:
“To
call it effort is true! To carry a woven basket filled with dirt/clay
weighing approximately 40-50 lbs from the source area and place it in
the location that the "mound contractor" (to put them in a
modern context) desired to achieve their architectural design, and to
repeat the process again and again...that is some dedication!
If one worker were to spend 30 minutes collecting , carrying, and dumping each basket, and spent 8 hours a day at work, it would take him 36 days to construct this small mound (8 hrs x 2 baskets per hr = 16 baskets per day; 16 baskets x 36 days = 576 baskets).
The biggest mound here at Winterville (Mound A) is approximately 300' x 325' x 55' tall. That equates into 5,362,500 cubic feet, which equals 3,575,000 baskets of dirt!
So, if we were to use the same poor worker to build Mound A, toting 16 baskets each day, it will take him 223,437 days which equals out to 612 years total time!!!
I guess he can just forget about any retirement plans!
I hope this answer helps you!”
I know I'm a dork, but I found this
fascinating and extended my thanks to the author.
On my way back to the visitor's center,
I stopped and talked to a man who was painting the little bridge and
of course, asked him about good local food. His suggestion: the Hot
Tamale Festival was due to start in a couple of days and, you guessed
it, we went. It was quite a popular local festival held in a downtown
parking lot a spilling out into the streets. Bands, booths selling
everything you could think of, and more tamale vendors than we could
try. It happened that the man I talked to had a friend in the
competition and of all the ones we tried, his were best, but sadly,
they couldn't come close to the wonderful tamales we got at a
farmer's market in Colorado Springs.
The other high-point during our stay
was Scoops Ice Cream and Grill in Greenville. We had shrimp po' boys
and ice cream a couple of times and once just got ice cream cones.
Yum! I could eat good ice cream any time. ( In fact, I remember one
time in January in Pine Mountain, GA when we got a pint of Blue Bell
homemade vanilla and sat in the truck in freezing weather to enjoy
the last Blue Bell until our next trip into Georgia, since at that
time, Blue Bell wasn't sold in Florida.)
Our next stop was Lake Bruin State
Park, St. Joseph, LA, our first time in this park as well. When we
found our site, it was obvious we had never been there before – our
site was lousy, but the surroundings were beautiful and the weather
was nice, so it all worked out.
We were only about 4 miles from the
nearest town but with only 1,100 people, the shopping was limited to
milk, eggs, and the like. The next nearest town was larger – 1,227
folks, and the shopping was about the same. We did drive to Natchez,
MS (about 60 miles) to do some grocery shopping, have lunch, and
visit the Natchez Trace Visitor's Center. It was a good day and we
enjoyed the visitor's center, as well as our lunch at Fat Mama's
Tamales. The sunsets we had at Lake Bruin were some of the most
spectacular I've ever seen and I imagine we'll be back, although to a
different site :).
From there, it was on to our customary
stop at Tickfaw to restock on Jerry Lee's boudin, take care of
laundry, do some maintenance and cleaning, and stock up on groceries,
etc. Once we left Tickfaw, it was back to Florida with a quick stop
at Blackwater River, and on to Paynes Prairie for our annual
checkups, and to get the truck worked on. You might remember that we
had some work done in Michigan that left us with a diesel exhaust
leak. We took the truck in to Gainesville Chevy, and since it was
going to take a day or so, rented a car. What a mess. While the
mechanic did a good job with the repair, management was not. After
much discussion and stalling on their part, we ended up paying a
second time for the work, then calling General Motors. After sending
in receipts and detailing the entire fiasco, we got a check from GM
for the entire bill.
It was on to Silver Springs State Park,
where we caught up with my nephew Matt and his wife Laura, as well as
our friend Lori. It was also time to take Dickens in for surgery to
remove some lumps. He's 13, and has some trouble with his hind legs,
but should have a couple of good years left. Since he's like part of
my soul, we couldn't see not having it done, in spite of the
degenerative nerve problem in his hind legs. Although the first night
out of surgery was tough, he came through it very well and we were
relieved.
Next we moved to Rodman State Park near
Palatka, FL and while there, my son Rick drove down from Jacksonville
for the day and brought his little girl, Emilia. His wife, Sam had to
work, sadly, but they will be moving into our house as sitters in
January, so will see her then. Thanksgiving day we drove down to
Plant City to see my daughter Beth and her family – it was a long
drive, but worth every minute.
It's nearly Christmas by this time, so
we moved to Stephen Foster in White Springs for their spectacular
Christmas light show. Both kids and families came by and spent time,
and Beth and her family were able to stay for the lights, model
trains, and hammered dulcimer music. After that we got to babysit
Emilia while Rick worked, then went back to help him pack and load
for the move. It was great and we had a wonderful time, but had to
get back to Gainesville to spend time at the house.
In spite of the rough spots throughout
the year, it has been one of the best we've ever had and are thankful
for all the good times. Now we are excited to see what awaits us in
2015.
