The Ocmulgee Indian Mounds and Museum

Today I woke up and started asking Phil, "Where are we going to go today?" I am trying to get us out more to see things. He didn't know and I didn't know so we got online and I found these Indian mounds in Macon, GA. Macon is just a couple hours from us. So we went. The trip was fairly nice until we got to Milledgeville where Phil tried to kill us pulling out of the gas station on the wrong side of the street (there was a grassy divider between the lanes so we ended up on the wrong side of the street...going the wrong way and a truck who was on the right side almost hit us when we got to the intersection.
Other than that one life threatening moment :) the trip was good.
When we got to Ocmulgee State Park we found they also had a really nice museum!

Lots of tools and arrowheads.

And examples of pottery where they took shards and recreated the pots from them.

Some were quite nice.

This showed you what a lodge might have looked like.

Another recreation. This showed the seating the lodge. There are hollowed out place in front of each seat that they really aren't sure what they were used for.

This is a bench with turtle rattles on it. I wish the picture had come out better.

We then went outside to see the real ceremonial mound. It has been reconstructed and only the floor is the original because the structure had been burned sometime in its past possibly when the Indians abandoned it. Here is it from the outside. I mistakenly thought this was all we would have to walk today...I didn't know there were other mounds but this one is the only one you can go inside.

Here we are at the entrance. It took me a couple tries to go in as the walkway in it is real claustrophobic but then they have an air conditioned room and glass around you so you can't actually walk on the original floor.

This is the inside. There is like a bird alter type thing and then the central fire pit.

With seating all around the outside edge of the lodge. The one bowl and shell are the only things they found on the original floor.

And then there were other mounds...WAY over there so we walked, and walked, and walked a whole lot more. It was very hot today! They don't look that big in this picture. But the big one is huge and has these handy steps for you to climb....

There was this pretty bridge to go over too.

One of my rest stops on the way up the mound steps. I wasn't doing so good by now. Heart skipping and not getting in nearly enough air but I was determined to make it to the top.

And here is the view from the very top of the mound. It was nice but I was really too tired to enjoy it. A cooler day might have made this a lot better for me.

We then went back down. I did not think I could walk all the way back through the hills in the sun so we decided to take the road which was more shaded although I think it was quite a bit longer. I made it about 2/3 of the way and they had this nice little bench in the shade and I had to stop by this little railroad bridge. A train went by while we were there.

 Phil went the rest of the way and got the car and said it was good thing I had stopped because it was up hill the rest of the way.  I felt better after I got cooler in the car and we had a nice, uneventful trip home (no near death experiences for the trip home).
It was really a wonderful trip and I hope we can find more things like this close by to visit!