A 5000-mile road trip through some of the
highest points of the Eastern United States, July 12-24, 1998
VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA From New Jersey we eventually got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and pulled over to camp about 3am. There were plenty of deer on the roads that time of night, they were our inspiration for getting off the road. We didn't bother to set up the tent, just threw our bags on the ground and went to sleep at a campground off the parkway. Only got about 3 hours sleep, got up and pressed on through the Great Smoky Mountains. We hit the highest point in Virginia on the way to Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina and Clingman's dome in Tennessee. We stopped a few times along the parkway to enjoy what the mountains had to offer (including river, waterfalls, and of course rocks). I was luck enough to find a prize slickenside, one with a black dendrite that precipitated out on the polished and striated face! We hiked around at Clingman's dome taking note of the destructive forces of nature in the form of some tree eating bug that stripped all the vegetation from the trees.
A stop along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina 6,684'
Highest Point of East of the Mississippi
Summer sunrise in the Great Smokies.
At this time, our trip south was well underway, we stopped in Little Switzerland, North Carolina to go to a wholesale rock shop (Emerald Village) and to do some gemstone panning there. It was a blast to pay the $5 for a bucket of dirt and sift through it looking for emeralds, sapphires, citrine, and other semi-precious stones. We went to Franklin, North Carolina (not New Jersey) next to do some more panning. We went to a Sapphire Mine there (a non salted-one). The plan there is Grab a shovel, dig a whole, come back and pan through your dirt in their sluice. It was a gorgeous summer day to sit outside and wash mud and rocks in a cool water sluice. Sapphires aren't really interesting to look at in the rough which is why most people just toss them on the ground before they know what to look for. The guy who ran the mine was just picking them up off the ground to show us what one was...he told us they had a boom there some years ago, where they hit a vein of the gemstones. He had to hire security and there were folks lined up outside the mine every morning until the vein was mined out. Our catch was fair. Lucky for me the guy was up for trading and I got rid of some fossils I toted from Florida and I got some serpentine, pyrite and two grab bags of gem stones.
We went through the waterfall district of North Carolina. Such beautiful countryside we wanted to stop at every one (as most falls are easily accessible). In this area around Highlands, North Carolina, there are 30-something(?) waterfalls. This should give you some idea of the country side in the most beautiful part of all the Appalachians. Waterfall Country, North Carolina
