The Mounds People -- Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village

Since it was too rainy today to look for diamonds, Chorro and I drove over to the nearby Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village, a settlement of Caddo Indian people that existed about a thousand years ago.


Chorro had to wait in the car, but there were three small dogs outside that reminded him of his cousins back in Wyoming, so he was content to sit there and talk with them a bit while I toured the museum and site.


The tribe who inhabited this village was stable with an agricultural society. They lived in huts and grew corn, beans and pumpkins, similarly to the Anasazi who lived to the west about the same time. The Caddo Indians here also hunted buffalo, a fact determined from excavating the village. The diorama below is dark and a little out-of-focus, but it shows how the village might have looked, based on what remains. There is a round hut in the foreground and the mounds at the center, back, towards the left. The funny little white things in the upper half of the picture are clouds. Aren't they cute? The indistinct stuff on each side is a reflection on the glass in front of the diorama.

Many beautiful artifacts were unearthed in ecavating these mounds. These are excellently made points.

And the pottery is beautiful.



This pictures shows actual mounds. To the right, the mound i(with the shelter on it) is a burial site for chiefs or important persons in the village. To the left, the mound is a ceremonial site.


Under the shelter is this excavation of the site. The bones and artifacts are replicas, not the real thing. Their placement represents where the actual items were found. An interesting note was that this male, about 50, had arthritis, as can be determined from the size of his knees. There were two burial excavations at this mound.


This mound is a ceremonial site. It held a structure that represented, perhaps, a temple, in which there was a continuously burning fire. When the current chief of the village died, the temple was burned and a new one contstructed on top of it. Thus the mound. The burial mound was different in that it held only two separate graves and they were not on top of each other. Other unexcavated mounds in the area were presumably also burial sites.


I think it is fascinating to find these advanced civilizations of "savages" in the history of this land. I'm still puzzling about the Northern Europeans who slaughtered ruthlessly to "own" the land, which is a strange concept in itself.

Back at the car, Chorro sat uncomfortably while a little shaggy blonde dog who could have passed for Chorro's little brother was barking loudly at him on the outside. I don't know what kind of claims Chorro made on the little guy's territory, but he chased us barking waaaaayy down the lane.

So ended another good day.

Some days are diamonds . . .

There is one diamond mine in the world that is open to the public and where you can keep any diamonds you find and I'm there!

Crater of Diamonds State Park in southwestern Arkansas has a real diamond mine, or actually, a field of diamonds.


In fact, it is the eighth-largest diamond mine in the world. Most days, someone finds a diamond. Yesterday, only one was found. The day before, five were. Some have been large, most are small.

The "mine" is thirty-some acres of plowed up field. It is the site of a volcano that erupted about 1,000,000 years ago, bringing to the surface some of the hardened carbon stuff created eons before that. "Mining" is searching most any way you want that doesn't use motorized equipment. Shovels, buckets, screens and sluice boxes are all fine if you want to go that route. Admission is $6.50 per day and there were about 20-30 people searching today. I think in the summer the number is probably ten times that.

Of course I spent the day looking for a diamond too. At first I was excited to see sparkles in the muddy soil and thought there must be diamond flakes all over. Nope, the sparkly flakes were mica. The diamonds found here can be white, brown or yellow, so that made looking even more interesting.

It has rained hard. "They" say that is the best time to find diamonds because some are newly uncovered by the rain. I walked uphill in the mud and soon could hardly lift my feet!


Can you see the huge clump of mud sticking to my foot? The only thing worse than that is to have huge clumps of mud sticking to both feet.


All of the mud in the lower half of the picture that is surrounding my feet was stuck to them. Two huge clods! I spent a lot of time keeping my feet clean enough to lift to take another step forward in the field.

Years ago, a shaft was dug hoping to find the source of the diamonds, but apparently the diamonds were dislodged from deep in the earth and only those on the surface can be discovered.
As I was walking leaving the are this afternoon, an older gentleman was just entering and he looked at me and said, "Have you seen Jack Nicholson's 'The Bucket List'?" I said I had and he said, "Well, this is on mine."

Here was my find. None of them were diamonds.


Here was another find, beautiful in yellow, orange, purple and pink.


John Denver sang, "Some days are diamonds, some days are stone."

Today was a diamond.

Arkansas, we are here!

We've decided Arkansas is the Golden State (sorry California). At least in the autumn. We drove the golden-orange roads today heading for our first state park in Arkansas. I will tell you what park it is tomorrow.


We're in the woods here rather than by a lake. And this is lovely too. The trees are tall oaks and loblolly pines, so looking around we see both gold and green. Here's our little woodsy nest for a couple of nights.


It happened that there was a charming nature trail down to the river where I could take Chorro off his leash and let him run. Here he is doing his happy dance.


Doesn't it make you wonder if grandmother's house will be through these woods?


Well here's the river! This is the Little Missouri River. There are actually two Little Missouri Rivers. One flows in North and South Dakota and Wyoming. The other is here in Arkansas. Here, it is referred to as Little Mo.


This community of ducks lives on Little Mo.


There was a small squabble in this community, but it was shortly worked out.


On the way back from the river, we came upon this moss. What a perfect color and texture for my next living room carpet!


Sunset in the woods is hardly noticeable. But as dusk comes, campfires light up all around us. The crickets chirp loudly, and it is warm enough that I have an open window and let them sing me to sleep.

Today was a good day.

Raymond Gary Lake

We drove south through a lot of Oklahoma today, along the Indian Turnpike.

We saw miles of rolling hills and no towns, few farms and not much traffic along the way.

Raymond Gary is the name of a small state park in the lower east corner of Oklahoma and we totally loved it. It was quiet, away from traffic, towns, noise and shared with just a few other people. It had the most beautiful lake we've been camped on this fall and the camping sites were right next to the water. Heavenly.

We quickly found a campsite and just started taking pictures.

Chorro wanted to explore the water

So I let him go in and check it out. Brrr. This is too chilly!

But the ducks love it.

And I think we have another blue heron who has found his winter home.

Sunset was another golden pastel water color.

Chorro waited patiently for the night life,

but all that happened out here was that dusk settled in.

Later, we could see the reflection of dock lights from the other side of the lake.

In the morning, the mist on the lake is eerily beautiful.

and watch the mist disappear

as the sun comes out and brightens the lake.

I could just sit here and take in the reflection of the trees on the still water, in fact, that is just what I did. I couldn't get enough of it!

We walked the shoreline, saw fishing jumping in the lake, a few fisher folks on the shore, and lots of blue sky.

Doesn't this look like a snug spot?

It was.

Today was a good day.

Lake Eufaula

Lake Eufaula, Oklahoma was our home for several days. It's a huge, manmade lake, the largest in the state. It was created by a dam across the Canadian River, a large dam about 1/2 mile wide, which generates hydroelectric power.

Something interesting we learned about Eufaula is that it also has one of the oldest newspapers in the state, "The Indian Journal."

The state park was the former hunting grounds of the Creek (Muscogee) Indian tribe. It's the only state park we've visited that has its own airstrip. It's also a very popular large mouth bass fishing spot.

Here's what our part of the lake looked like.


Here's the view from our campsite.


And here's the campsite guard dog on duty.


We were greeted by ducks as soon as we got to the lake.


And later saw these birds over on the other side of the lake -- possibly egrets.


It's a really large park, so we walked a lot.

That's Crazy Snake Trail that Chorro is heading down. Yes, the trails had signposts.

We saw some uncommon wildlife -- actually the first time in my travels I have seen an armadillo that was not expired on the highway.

And at dusk the deer grazed nearby.

The trees were still colorful in the sun.

And roses were blooming near the Nature Center.

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But there were unmistakable signs of winter approaching in the park.

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Yes, a snowman waving a greeting. Park employees worked every day stringing lights for a big Christmas light extravaganza that will be held in the park. Snowmen . . . Santas . . .

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dinosaurs?

and more, still to be untangled.

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And at day's end we were graced with good food

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and even better sunsets.

Today was a good day.