OCMULGEE NM MACON, GA

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CONGAREE NP HOPKINS, SC

30 Mar

Ocmulgee NM sits right in the heart of Macon GA. In the park there are seven mounds they are funeral mounds, earthlodge, village site, cornfield mounds, prehistoric trenches and trading post site. As always we took the tour of the visitor center and watched the park video movie to get an inside look at the history before touring the mounds themselves. Some of the mounds were over twenty-five feet high and built by hand. Men carried 60 lbs bag of dirt in estimated seven phases to build just one mound. The most impressive was the earthlodge, which still stands today (with the help from today's man). The ground ceremony floor is still the original, but the mound built on the side and above is new. Twice a year when the sun rises the light would shine directly on the head leader sitting place in the circle. Next, we walked to the the funeral mound that once stood twenty-five feet high. It was still tall as we had to take the ramp stairs to get to the top. Once on top you can see over the National Monument and can see downtown Macon. As we were walking back I heard noise in the woods and went to look, it was four deer running. They were too fast to get a picture, but it was still a sight to see.

31 Mar

I want to start off by wishing my mother a Happy Birthday.

Congaree NP is in Hopkins, SC. The visitor center was small and the park video player was broke, the ranger said it has been that way for almost six months. So we went on to walk the trail with only a paper guide to inform us of what we were to expect. The weather was not the best so we tried to make a quick tour of the park. The trail is only two miles, but we took a ton of pictures and took us almost two hours to walk the two mile trail. The trail is a wood platform as we walked over water, swap like land. As we came to one of the bridges there was a water moccasin. Luckily for us, we just passed by it with no conflict. The rest of the park was trees and birds. We both had our camera in hand taking pictures of trees and birds.

1 Apr

We have to be at campground tour tomorrow and there is nothing close to see, so we stopped at Wal Mart and spent 18 hours in the parking lot. There was two semi trucks, so we parked close to them and nothing happened. This was our first ever day/night at a Wal Mart and the horrible stories I heard and read on blogs  where not true. There was even a sign that said no over night parking, but we kept to ourselves and quite. There was a shopping area close by where we ate dinner and had free WiFi. All-in-all not one bad experience to write about.