The Reinert Adventures: Ohio: Indians and Goats

On the 27th, we took our time getting up. We had stayed up the night before watching "We Bought A Zoo" after spending a delightful evening with the Dickersons.

Aaron went down to breakfast at the hotel and brought me up a strawberry danish and apple juice and went back to sleep till 11.

When we finally got up, we decided to head to Sun Watch Indian Village.

In the 1960's an old Indian village site was found in that area by the Great Miami River in Dayton, Ohio. Aaron and I love ancient ruins especially Native American ruins (or Lamanites as I like to call them since I'm LDS and love the Book of Mormon).

We watched a video about the park and how it came to be. We learned about how this village was built in a circle. There was a fence. There was a circle of houses inside of that. There was a grave yard in a circle inside of that and at the center of everything were two poles that are used to read the sun. The video also informed us that what drove the people out of this camp site was most likely a giant fire that made it necessary for them to leave.

We checked out the exhibit inside. There were a lot of artifacts to see and displays of what the people would have looked like.

This guy had on a pretty intense feather jacket.

Remember when I talked about the different circles for different things? Well here is a picture that was on display to show where certain things are found in the area.

I blew up the "Sweat Lodge" for you to see. It is in the middle of the grave yard.

Can I offer another opinion? It is based off of my knowledge of the Book of Mormon and other sites that I have been to.

In Mexico all of the temple sites had what scientists have decided are "spas" or "sweat houses". They are usually stone paved pits in the ground that would be filled with water. Sometimes they would have a building over it to make it covered. But why put it in the middle of the grave yard?

This is my thought. When we are baptized in our religion we are fully submerged as a way to symbolize going down into the grave and being reborn. Most of the time it is a tub of water below ground level.

Although this site was build around 1200AD and by the information in the Book of Mormon, the church was corrupted, we also know that they kept some of their beliefs and changed them and made them their own. Maybe they didn't have the church as we know it anymore but I think that it is very likely that they put a baptismal font in their town out of tradition.

Moving on....
OUTSIDE!

The first place that we went into the was the Big House. The Big House was were scientist think that these Indians had community meetings and celebrations.

There was plenty of seating for the people of the village....as long as only about 75 people tried to get in.

Through the door of the Big House, you can see poles in the center of the village. When the sun casts a shadow of the poles toward the Big House, they knew that they were safe to start planting their crops.

There were a lot of different houses to look at but they were mostly more of the same. Aside from the Big House, all of the other homes just looked like homes inside. Areas for cooking and for sleeping.

This is Aaron looking at the sun posts.

I thought that this was awesome people. The people who lived here made pits to throw trash and when they were full of trash, they finished burying them and built new ones.

I don't think that this was intentional but isn't this a total and complete reconstruction FAIL!?

I realize that they probably didn't want people falling in...but still....a plastic trash can lid? Come on.

And that was the Indian Village in a nut shell.

The day was only half over....so what should we do next?

Young's Jersey Farm!!!

We were starving so we went into the Young's restaurant for a bite to eat. The onion rings were super yummy but the show stopping tasty was the fresh strawberry milkshake.

The fresh picked strawberries in that fresh dairy ice cream was amazing. I loved it so much! I wished that I had had room in my stomach for 5 more. It gave me enough energy to run around outside with all of the animals!

I got to feed a goat! It only cost me a quarter to have this goat lick my hand all over. I love being an adult with my own money to waste on goat food.

Inside the barn were chickens....

....cows....

....a cow milking man....

....and mama goats with babies!!

Look at these adorable babies!!!!

I even liked petting the mamas!

Petting this little one who was too scared to leave his mama. He liked a scratch behind the ears...because come on...who doesn't?

We got to the barn just in time for seeing the milking. It was really interesting to me. I've seen the Mr. Rogers on going to the farm but it was really interesting to see it in person.

We found out that the average cow can produce 6 gallons of milk a day. 3 gallons in the morning and 3 gallons at night.

Exceptional cows can give 10 gallons of milk a day! I can see why people could get along with just one dairy cow living on a farm.

When milking time was over we went out for some photo ops that were set up in the yard.

I might have been enjoying it a little too much.

And it was sad when it was time to head back to the hotel but at least we got a full day of activities packed into the day.

FALSE!!!!!

We didn't go back to the hotel! That is for losers! Instead we drove back through this town that we passed getting to the Dairy called Yellow Springs. It looked beautiful and quaint and artistic.

And it was.

We went to this fun Lego store that Aaron LOVED. I've got to admit that it was really cool. And I got to get a gumball from this GIANT gumball machine.

They had this HUGE display of pirate ships and an island and see monsters. It was epic and awesome. It made me want to go home and see what I could do with my Lego people but we'll see.

This amazing door covered in ivy. I don't know why but it had a stack of books outside sitting on the steps.

Aaron relaxing while I photograph the town. I love that kid's face.

Yes....this town was really artsy. I don't know why their is a giant snake but there is.

On the light post there is this felt creation: "Every Day Heros" (They spelled Heroes wrong but that's okay). People put up felt shields with names of their heroes on them.