October 31, Povery Pt, LA and home to the Astros

October 31 Happy Halloween

46 degrees this morning as we complete crossing Alabama and then cross Mississippi.  We continue past Natchez and Vicksburg, both nice places that we've visited previously.  We are heading for Poverty Point, Louisiana.  After a 45-minute delay due to an accident, we enter Louisiana and turn north to Poverty Point. Through lots of corn and cotton fields.  But here the cotton has been picked and made into large bales which are wrapped in plastic and awaiting pick up.  This has obviously been picked by machine, which probably most is these days.  A few waterways, but signs of irrigation too.

Poverty Point National Monument is a World Heritage Site, named after a plantation that was developed here in the 1800's.

A little less than impressive in appearance, it is nonetheless a very interesting spot.  There is a visitors center and a few other buildings and we need to head to the "Lab" to get a ranger to open the visitors center/museum.

This monument consists of 6 earthen mounds with concentric c-shaped ridges, built about 3,500 years ago by the ancestors of modern American Indians.  It is the oldest of the mound builders sites in the US.   Built between 1700 and 1100BC, it was probably the "New York City" of its day.   The earthworks were built by moving about 15 million cubic feet of dirt, probably using woven baskets.  There is some evidence of holes that may have held poles, and many of the mounds no doubt had structures of some sort on them.  The museum has displays of many decorative items, spearheads, etc. that have been recovered here.

 Where was this information in our American History books?

Evidence of some stones, copper, shells and other items indicate that these people had a wide trade network including Mexico and many neighboring states.

Mound A, the largest, was 710' in length, 660' wide and 72' above the land surface.  It has an unusual shape which some think is a bird in flight.  We walk to the top and wonder about people who walked these same grounds (minus the stairway :)) thousands of years ago!   Excavation and study continues.

After leaving Poverty Point, we discuss the rest of the trip, and decide we could head for home and make it in time to see what might be the last game of the World Series.  It will be a long haul, but we should get home just about game time - 8:00 tonight.  We hit Texas about 4:30 and make our way south and west through some rain here and there.  God bless Greg and his love of driving!

We get home in the 2nd inning and the Astros can't pull it off.  Ah well, we will be better able to stay up and enjoy the deciding game 7 tomorrow!  Yeah Astros!!