heading toward flnw from pensacola beach this morning
i chanced on a place called muscogee cantonment
which interested me first because it sounds like it may have been a stage stop en route to the original muscogee territory of 1854 indian country fame
which you may recall i noted recently for its triplet ghost bubbles
& secondly because the map depiction of the cantonment place shows it was laid out along the cardinal & semicardinal directions so as to look rather like a union jack with an octapoint in the middle
i had always expected i might find an octapoint somewhere laid out along such lines
most probably somewhere in the middle west
say like in the center of mansfield ohio
tho that one has proved to be just a near miss & a nonpolitical conjunction besides
so i wasnt entirely surprised to learn of the existence of that newfound finnish octapoint
even tho its entirely irregular slicework makes it an entirely different type of case than i was actually expecting
but i do still wonder if there mightnt still be a perfectly regular octapoint lurking somewhere
this one at muscogee cantonment didnt prove to have any political significance either
but to have just a convergent street alignment with a central plaza
a ballpark occupies the plaza today
i went out to center field to find the point of multiconvergency of the street centerlines
& sure enough there was a good sized pothole precisely there
which i guessed may have previously been occupied by the base of a flagpole or some other sort of monument or marker
what a rush
a simulated find
but my dream of someday finding a regular octapoint somewhere is still just that
a dream
next i continued on to the vicinity of flnw where just to its east i was lucky enough after a few false starts to finally gain the necessary permission to visit & photograph my first ellicott mound after about a decade of search & research
what a beauty
five mounds in one actually
forming a cardinal cross
with a modern marker supplanting the original burnt stump in the middle
pix to follow
if my hot glovebox hasnt fried my film
oops
from there it was only about 600 feet to flnw
& i made a valiant try for it but ultimately fell probably about 120 feet short
stuck & lost in swampy thickets coursed by the rain swollen perdido river
& with neither the alfl ellicott line nor anything like the alfl thalweg anywhere in view
i should add flnw is a cool point not only because it is a state semicard
but also because it is an interstate tricounty point
& with 2 of its 3 counties having the same name yet
escambia al & escambia fl
i wonder how many pairs of counties of the same name abut across state lines like this
sounds like another question for dan
there were several occasions when i knew i was in escambia county all right
yet not which state i was in
but based on my experience
future generations of visitors to flnw may be well advised to canoe down from the bridge just above it
preferably at moderate to low water so as to be able to gauge midstream or the thalweg
but with gps in hand
since there is probably no other way of identifying the latitudinal transsection point there
next stop was the stockton alabama ellicott mound
which i blew off as just another ellicott mound
ho hum
despite its historical marker & directions
in favor of trying the 1799 ellicott esus international ghost rock
aka the st stephens meridian initial point
located just across the river
the only rock he left on the old esus line amidst the hundreds of mounds
& which i found & photographed but couldnt reach since it was behind an iron picket fence
it is the one shown in bus&ss
but it has a big new crack & a cement patch in it
hence presumably the new protective fence
also i was still thinking it was friday then
tho i have since learned it is only thursday now
next target
the only other international ghost rock in the usa
situated on modern latx which is the former txus
but first i think a trip to the mardi gras is in order
just to sandwich these 2 great ghosts of old louisiana together
one other thing i had been looking for while in southern alabama is the site of the original
alibamu mabila palindromic indian village which was responsible for contributing the entire name of mobile alabama to that city
albeit in reverse also
this one wont be so easy to find tho
i know there are a whole shovelful of archeologists looking for it too
but they dont even know where to dig yet
they only know it was situated quite far from modern mobile
so i was quite tickled to also find just south of the ellicott rock another historical marker noting the site of the original city of mobile in both french & english
dated 1702 i think tho the sign was brand new
& many miles from the modern city of mobile
so then could this also have been the site of the original alibamu mabila village too
hmm
i wont make any claims yet
but maybe i should at least call the archeologists & tell them about my discovery of this historical plaque
& let them do the digging
beeps
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