Visiting Historic Mounds on our Way to Texas

The Stinsons flew back to Houston on the 10th of June. I gave piano lessons on June 11th and 12th, and on the evening of the 12th Kent and I headed out to drive to Texas. We spent the first night in Roanoke, Virginia, which is about five hours from Stafford. 

We decided to take the route so we would drive through Arkansas, a state we haven't been to yet. We had just crossed into Tennessee when a red warning light came on the dashboard. Sure enough, the car died just after we'd passed a rest area. We pulled off to the shoulder and called AAA.

The van was towed to a car repair place in the town of Greeneville, where we were very blessed that the repair shop was able to fit us in and had the correct alternator to replace the one that had given out in our van. All in all we were about four hours behind schedule, but we still made it to our hotel outside of Memphis late that night.

Kent had been reading some books about the ancient Americans, and saw that there were some archeological sites along our route from Virginia to Texas. The first one we visited was Parkin Archeological State Park in Arkansas, outside of Memphis, TN.

There were some interesting artifacts that had been found.

And there were some mounds at the park, too. Mounds were built by ancient Americans and are found all over the eastern United States. Researchers believe this city was inhabited from 1000 to 1550 AD.

The interesting thing about this settlement is that it was described by Spanish explorers when they came upon it in 1541, so more is known about it than many other locations. 

The second ancient American site we visited was Toltec Mounds State Park, outside of Little Rock, Arkansas.

It's claim to fame is that it's the largest and most complex mound site in the state of Arkansas.

It's an active archeological site, with trails to walk along to see the mounds. It was interesting to learn more about the mounds and the ancient Americans.

Leaving Arkansas as we drove into Texas--we were getting excited to meet Parker Lee, our new grandson born on June 8th!!