Pinson Mounds State Park in Tennessee

An Unplanned Trip

We Burnses have not always been known for being spontaneous people. We like a plan. Maybe not a strict plan, but at least a guideline. We like to know what is coming next. But maybe that is changing just a bit.

Recently, Jaylin was off on another chorus and band trip. Unlike the last one, I did not go along this time. So we ended up with a few days to ourselves. We went out to eat on Thursday night (one of our favorite small Italian places). We went to a movie on Friday night (finally got to see Black Panther). And then on Saturday morning, we woke up with plans to do either yard work or housework.

But it was such a nice day outside that we did not want to do anything involving “work.” Laura said that someplace to go for a walk or a hike sounded nice. I threw out a few suggestions, and we decided on one of our favorites, Pinson Mounds State Park.

Pinson Mounds is home to mounds of various sizes built by native people around 1500 years ago. And it also has paved paths and unpaved trails that are perfect for walking. Just what we had in mind.

We packed up a picnic lunch and made the drive to Pinson Mounds, which is slightly over an hour from our house. When we arrived, there were some cars in the parking lot, and it looked like someone was having some sort of large family gathering in the picnic pavilion. But there really weren’t that many people there. Just right for us.

Perfect Weather, Perfect Day

As you can see from the photo above, the weather was just about perfect. When we were eating our picnic lunch in the shade of some trees, the wind was a little cool. But once we started walking, the temperature was just right.

As you can see here, we enjoyed ourselves greatly. We did walk up all of the steps to the observation platform at the top of the largest mound. You can see those steps back in the first photo. As we were on the way back down, a girl and her grandmother were counting the steps as they went up. Laura said, “I don’t even want to know how many there were!” The mound is almost 80 feet tall, so that is roughly the equivalent of 8 flights of stairs. Fortunately, we did that before we walked all over the rest of the park. Because if we had waited, we might not have made it.

While we were there, we were presented with a mystery. As you can see from these photos, the mound is nice and clear. But in our previous visits, there were trees growing on the mound. In fact, all of the large mounds had been cleared of trees. We still haven’t figured out why that was done. Still a mystery. But I am sure they had a good reason.

So we enjoyed our fun day together. We got in lots of steps for the day. We stopped on the way home and had a nice dinner. And we still were on time to pick Jaylin up when he returned from his trip.

Sometimes the unplanned days are some of the best days!

Bible Verse

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands. - Psalm 19:1

About the photo

Not much special about either of these photos. It was such a beautiful day that you almost couldn’t help getting a good photo. For the first photo, I brought up the shadow detail a bit, and I increased the color saturation slightly, but that was the bulk of the work done to it.

For the second photo, I did much of the same. This was another one of those fun fisheye self-portraits that I have grown fond of during some of our recent trips. Who needs a selfie stick when you have a fisheye lens and an arm?

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: April 21, 2018
Location: Pinson Mounds State Park, Tennessee