This weekend we went to the 192nd anniversary of the battle of Horseshoe Bend, which is not too far from Alexander City, AL. This is going to sound silly, but I grew up hearing about Horseshoe Bend and it never dawned on me that it happened in Alabama, or what the consequences were (for instance, 800 Upper Creeks died defending their property here, that Sam Houston fought and was wounded here by an arrow, that afterwards the Creek Nation surrendered 20+ million acres that helped form Alabama and Georgia, that it was this battle that helped catapult Andrew Jackson's political career, that although the battle ended March 27, 1814 that it is still considered part of the 'War of 1812').
At the festival, there were people who were teaching crafts like basketweaving (above), and demonstrating weaving (below), another who was showing how arrowheads are made. There was always a crowd around him - he taught himself how to make arrowheads, and made one while we were standing there. I don't really know anything about arrowheads, but his demonstration was just really interesting.
This was nice to do once - but another thing we did on Sunday (even better) was a visit to the Kymulga mill and covered bridge. I'll post that tomorrow. All the pics from Horseshoe Bend are here in my Flickr set.
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