Happy Easter and My First Ever Thinking Bench

 Location: Jenning's Ferry Corps of Engineers Campground; about 40 minutes southwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama on the banks of the Black Warrior River

First and foremost. Happy Easter. He's risen and the napkin was folded, meaning he'll be back. 

If you're unfamiliar about the napkin, here is the short version. In the bible, as John first sees the empty tomb of Jesus, he describes the linen cloth (napkin) that had been placed on the face of Jesus as he was laid in the tomb as being folded neatly and separate from the other burial items. The people of that time, especially the Jews, recognized the meaning. During meals, servants who set the table and served the food stood by as needed. If the master of the house crumpled his napkin and left it on the table, that meant he was finished with the meal and would not be back. This was the sign for the servants to begin cleaning up. BUT, if he folded the napkin neatly and placed it on the table, as it was in the tomb, it meant he was leaving the area for a little while but would return. Happy Easter Ya'll.

This campground was my first Corps of Engineers campground back in 2014 when I began full-timing. It was my third campground on my first trip. It was also the location of the first picture of a "thinking bench", ever. Geez,,,,I don't know how many thinking benches I've taken pictures of but it's got to be 200 to 300. Today is the third and final day here and I've yet to find that bench again. I'll take another walk this evening, but my hopes are not high about finding it. I guess it was removed and never replaced. This is one of the reasons why I don't like back-tracking to some places I've been in the past. You always run the chance of damaging a "silent echo" from the previous visit.

This is the picture of my very first "thinking bench" from April of 2014. I couldn't find it this time and that is sad. Anyway, this is the one that started all of them. 

This is my campsite. Too many trees for Starlink to work while attached to Liberty. I think I could have found an opening in the trees and mounted it on a tripod but since Verizon was giving me a reliable signal, it wasn't worth the effort. There isn't much around this area to explore but it is a very relaxing, good-vibe campground. 

Still fulfilling a promise. This is a stretch of road in west-central Alabama. She should have enough road pictures now to make an atlas but, I'll keep posting them.

The exploration for this visit was the Indian Mounds in Moundville, Alabama about 20 miles from here. They, and the Indian settlement that was part of it, is the second largest Mound Complex in North America. Second, only to Cahokia which is on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River by St. Louis. I visited that site back in July of 2021 and you can read about it here >>>>> https://gozatravels.blogspot.com/2021/07/valve-stems-and-cahokia.html

This is the best overall view of most of the complex. There are 29 mounds of all different sizes. They even had a thinking bench on this mound. I'm pretty sure it wasn't put there by the Native people from the 1600's.

This was a representation of someone's GUESS about the Natives at this site. They used a lot of weasel words in describing their suppositions (not to be confused with Preparation H). But, as usual, they never explain how they arrived at them. Hey, I'm only slightly jaded, but it seems I become more jaded as the years go by. 

I've been to several such mound complexes around the country and each one is a little different but with many similar things which means they were connected in some way. This place, like Cahokia, had a palisade wall surrounding the area. Building a palisade around the perimeter of an area this size is impressive by itself.

I don't feel up to getting deep into my thoughts on the Native Americans and the mound builders from 500 to 1,000 years ago. Maybe that deserves a post on its own. 

Tomorrow is moving day and I'll be headed about 100 miles northwest of here to another COE campground, but this time in Mississippi.   

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road