About a month ago Ian and I drove down to Manchester for a day hike at Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park, a 2,000-year-old American Indian ceremonial site.
It was gorgeous in spite of the still winter-esque landscape (there’s something a little sad about an entire forest of barren trees with just a few sprigs of green), though I was bummed to discover that there was not, in fact, a big fortress made out of stone for me to look at and maybe climb around on. But come on, when you read this:
It consists of mounds and walls that combine with cliffs and rivers to form an enclosure measuring 1-1/4 miles around. The 50-acre hilltop enclosure mound site is believed to have served as a central ceremonial gathering place for some 500 years. It has been identified as, perhaps, the most spectacularly sited sacred area of its period in the United States and the largest and most complex hilltop enclosure in the south.
You’re going to expect a FORT, right? Walls! It says walls! But the only stone walls to look at were those of an old mill. Which was cool, but not 2,000-years-old cool. We kept seeing signs that directed us to walk either above or below the “wall,” but let’s face it: They should just stick with calling those things mounds. Because that’s what they were. Small hills in the landscape that were covered in dirt and leaves and mud.
And a note for the settlers who “tended to name such enclosures ‘forts,’” — come on. You know what a fort is. Don’t tell me you weren’t trying to play a practical joke on your descendants, knowing that by the time we discovered what you had stumbled upon anything that was left of a structure would be gone and we’d be all “WTF? Where is the fort?!”
But despite a little historical pwnage from our ancestors, we really enjoyed this state park and are planning on returning sometime this spring/summer to see what everything looks like when the foliage is out in full force.
Pictures are here.
I said I wasn’t going to feed the troll, but like any good American I can’t not look at a train wreck. Plus, our friend Scott brought over Patron coffee liqueur, Disaronno and Bailey’s Irish Creme (to mix together and drink a very tasty but potent concoction) tonight, so we needed some entertainment to go along.
she did with us. We returned a month later to pick her up and take her home. 
She is the sweetest, sassiest, smartest, prettiest, most demanding cat I have ever known. She knows how to turn on my closet light, how the faucets work, and can distinguish Ian’s or my car before we pull up to the house. She knows when one of us is feeling down or sick and comforts us. She is rarely in a different room than us, and she loves laying on Ian more than anything. She taught Gordo how to drink water from the sink, King Boo how to meow and Evil Twin how to play. They all want to be like her. 
