Traveling

Today, we begin our journey to Southern Ohio and my appointment with a bucket truck. We will be stopping at the Hopewell Culture Center in Chillicothe as well as visiting Mound Park in Portsmouth.

Southern Ohio is the most important center for the Mound Builders culture which included the Adena Peoples, the Hopewell Peoples, and the Fort Ancient Peoples (which may have been the predecessor of the historic Shawnee Tribe.)

At one point, there may have been 150,000 people in this region, many of them connected by a road, sometimes referred to as "the Hopewell Road" that was 200 feet wide and with 15 foot high embankments, stretching for 60 miles between Newark and Chillicothe.

My destination, Portsmouth, OH was built over the ruins of the largest earthworks from the period. Portsmouth sits at the confluence of the Scioto River and the Ohio River. The artist Robert Dafford, who painted the murals on the flood wall has this interpretation of what they would have looked like.

Very impressive!

Of course, Dafford's Mural takes me back to the reason I am traveling there -- to sign the Star on the flood wall with my name on it

and the bucket truck!