Summer Trip 2014 Day 8

My Bird had the car packed before Bunny Boo and The Screamer were even awake, so she has certainly learned about the glory of discovering what is next!

Today we went to the Poverty Point Indian mounds and hiked around that beautiful countryside.

It was a great site, almost nobody was there, and the tour guide was as cool and slow-talking as any Southerner could be.

What we learned was that there are ancient Indian earthwork settlements all over Louisiana, and they are the oldest earthwork structures in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the old mounds and structural arrangement of the settlement has been lost because it was a farm for a very long time. Then one day in the 50’s a guy was flying over the farm and noticed that there was a giant design on the ground that one would not notice unless one were in an airplane. It looked like this:

It was pretty exciting to see all the artifacts and play with drums and skins and animal foot prints.

The air was really dense around us and humid, but The Lion and I really wanted to climb the highest mound for a look around, and so we did.

Louisiana is worth hiking through humidity for. It’s spectacularly beautiful. Supposedly, the largest mound is in the shape of a bird, and it is thought that perhaps the mounds were used as sacred meeting places where good spirits were welcomed and evil spirits were warded off. Or maybe the king just wanted a really high hill shaped like a bird so he could go up there to view the amazing landscape. Whatever the reason, it is there, and it has endured since the times of the biblical judges. Pretty neat.

We also discovered some cicada shells, and that explained the shrill sounds we have heard at night. My Bird is so incredibly annoyed by that sound, and I think it was a relief to her to discover the source. The tour guide thought it was very strange that we got so excited about a larvae shell.

We left Poverty Point and next headed down to the Gulf Coast.

We could have made it all the way, but it was getting somewhat late and I didn’t want to chance getting all the way down there only to discover no place to stay on such short notice. We found a place that promised river camping on our rout, and headed there.

Have I mentioned that people in the South are the nicest people? We had been warned again and again to steer clear of the deep south with My Bird and The Screamer, but we are so happy we listened to those who gave the go-ahead. We’ve not had a single issue! In fact, people go out of their way to be kind to us. Part of that is the fact that we are from California, and that seems to be a novelty here. I guess Californians don’t get down here often. As we were driving down the road, minding our own business, My Bird suddenly pointed out a van driving next to us. It contained a family, and the driver and front passenger were pointing at us and yelling out the window. I thought something was really wrong, but instead they wanted to welcome us to Mississippi and tell us where to eat for dinner where kids eat free! It’s been like that the entire time!

Well, we found our campground, and it gave me the Heebie Jeebies, so we moved on to the next place we could find on a river. It was called Okatoma Resort and RV Park and the campsite we chose was situated on a little cliff overlooking a river. Not only that, it was the only campsite on that 5-acre plot! Perfect!

The owners build stairs and a plank bridge down to a sandbar beach leading into the river. The current was somewhat strong, but there was plenty of shallow water to splash around in. That’s all these kids need to make them happy. So we went to bed with the promise of rivers and oceans in the next day, and everyone slept very soundly!