Sunday, July 11, 2010
Back yesterday from a trip to southern Ohio for a family birthday party. At the end of the winter, I'd visited seventy-nine of Ohio's eighty-eight counties; except for one in the north, all of the missing ones were in the southeast. When I visited Isaac in April, I passed through six of the nine, and I took a trip to the northern one a couple of weeks ago. Still remaining were the two in the far south, Gallia and Jackson; however, I visited both counties on Friday :-)
After the party (for my two-year-old cousin), I stayed overnight with my aunt and uncle, and I left midway through the morning to see various historic sites south of Columbus. I didn't have much time for the many sites; while I saw such impressive places as the Adena Mansion and Mound City, I didn't have time for extensive tours. Nevertheless, it was quite an impressive trip — the original Adena mound, the original Hopewell mounds, the largest Hopewell mounds and some of the largest Hopewell earthworks, and the site of Ohio's first capitol.
After the party (for my two-year-old cousin), I stayed overnight with my aunt and uncle, and I left midway through the morning to see various historic sites south of Columbus. I didn't have much time for the many sites; while I saw such impressive places as the Adena Mansion and Mound City, I didn't have time for extensive tours. Nevertheless, it was quite an impressive trip — the original Adena mound, the original Hopewell mounds, the largest Hopewell mounds and some of the largest Hopewell earthworks, and the site of Ohio's first capitol.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Today was quite busy — I went along with Isaac, who was training on an older aircraft in the Cincinnati metro area, and I spent much of the day either in driving or in taking pictures. We left earlier than necessary in order to visit Fort Ancient, one of the most significant sites constructed by any of the mound building peoples. I'd wanted to go there for quite a while, but we'd never quite had the time. Isaac decided to go along to keep me happy, if I understood him rightly, but he left wishing that we'd left an hour earlier so that he would have had more time to hike around :-)
The fort is quite an amazing place. Built on a plateau more than two hundred feet above the nearby Little Miami River, it's believed to have been a ceremonial center built by the Hopewell tradition; the name "Fort" is derived from erroneous nineteenth-century beliefs that it was a city and used as defensive works. I'd like to post a picture; however, my photos came out sufficiently poorly to mean that the only picture I'll show is a map of the fort, below.
The fort is quite an amazing place. Built on a plateau more than two hundred feet above the nearby Little Miami River, it's believed to have been a ceremonial center built by the Hopewell tradition; the name "Fort" is derived from erroneous nineteenth-century beliefs that it was a city and used as defensive works. I'd like to post a picture; however, my photos came out sufficiently poorly to mean that the only picture I'll show is a map of the fort, below.
