Poverty Point is not the showiest National Park, but it is an Unesco World Heritage site and they are very proud of it! The general theme of the park is that there are five large earthen mounds and several concentric ring mounds, all built by Native Americans between 1700 and 1350 BC. All the experts agree that they have no idea what they were for or why they were built, but are convinced that this was a large city of importance. Very interesting.

I texted Peter later in the day and described the park ranger as “a really friendly Ron Swanson.” He might have been a little too friendly! But he was super great with the girls and he taught us to throw spears, and even (hesitantly) let Esme have a go at this pump drill.

There is such a benefit to being the only visitors in the museum. We love having rangers all to ourselves!

All around the country we have heard about paleontological research and the information gleaned from it. But Waco Mammoth National Monument jumps right to 11 in that regard.

Have you ever heard of it? I hadn’t either. Here’s a quick history- in 1978 a three foot femur bone was found on a dairy farm. After preliminary excavations they found fossils of an entire Nursery heard of Colombian Mammoths in the clay stream bed. Most of those fossils have been removed for storage in a museum, but other fossils have been left in situ and a ‘floating’ building has been built above the dig so that visitors can walk through and see. These in situ fossils will remain there, but the dig is still active and there are other fossils (mammoth and otherwise) that will continue to be excavated.

This was a small park with a 1hr tour, but it was really fantastic. If you are near Waco you should definitely check it out. We really loved it.

It was a soggy day in San Antonio, but we braved the rain to visit Mission San Jose and the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. The park video was very informative and I liked walking the grounds. I was disappointed to see that the chapel was closed, but I loved seeing the exterior. Especially the remnants of the original paint.