Ocmulgee National Monument

Visited: March 2020

Location: Macon, Georgia

Accommodations: Holiday Inn, Macon, Georgia

Duration: 2-3 hours

National Park Trip Season 5 – Spring Break Edition has begun. Our goal – to finish all the Florida National Parks. However, a pandemic is afoot and will we be able to finish??? Stay tuned.

Macon Georgia is about 15 hours from our house and we have another 6-8 hours to go before our stay in Bradenton, Florida. I added this National Monument to break up the drive. We got up around 3 am and drove the 15 hours, staying at a very nice Holiday Inn in Macon, not far from the Monument. We awoke the next morning, ate our continental breakfast and headed out to Ocmulgee National Monument.

Ocmulgee is witness to 10,000 years of inhabitants in this area of North America, ranging from Ice Age hunters to Creek Indians. The period between 900 and 1100 CE (Common Era) is highly notable above other ages here. The Mississippian Culture, a skillful farming people inhabited the area. They built Earth lodges, burial sites, a village, trading post and trenches in this area and all can still be seen during your visit here.

We started off at the Visitor Center by grabbing Junior Ranger books and heading into the museum. You will need to spend some time in the visitor center looking at displays to complete your Junior Ranger book, it is a really nice center/museum.

We finished all inside questions and headed out into the park for more answers. We took off on the trail that loops from the VC goes up to the Earth lodge, past the Cornfield Mound, by the trenches and back to the VC. It was a gorgeous spring day in Georgia and we loved this walking path.

We then surfaced back at the Visitor Center, got in the car and drove the road to see the other sites- Village Site, Trading post, and all the other mounds.

We headed back up to the Visitor Center after completing our Junior Rangers and got a really cool surprise! Check it out a cool patch to add to our collection! Junior Ranger patches received, lots of cancellations in our passport and we are off to the beach in Bradenton and our next National Park Service site!!

Well that’s a wrap for this National Monument we learned “mounds” of information.

Up next DeSoto National Memorial and off to Wal-Mart for toilet paper, apparently there is a shortage, or is there really?? Stop back soon to see more!