The Day Michael Jackson Died

It was a typical day in most aspects except that I had been extremely tired. It was another hot, humid, South Carolina day and I had spent most of it inside where it is air conditioned. Normally I have my TV on all day, listening to the 24hour news channels and occasionally watching something on NAT GEO, Discovery, HGTV, or the Travel Channel. I like to be kept up to date on the news of the world so it is always my background noise while I get other things done throughout the day. On Thursday afternoon I had made a trip to the bank and post office and stopped by Pet Smart to get a refill on Millenni's thyroid medication. Upon arriving home I opted not to turn the TV back on. Instead I washed some dishes and then decided to check my email and Facebook postings then for some reason I decided to sign on to Twitter and see if any new postings had been made by the people I am following. For some reason I have not been very active on Twitter... I go several times a week and check it out but this particular afternoon I felt compelled to check it out. What I saw shocked me and I will forever remember how I found out that Michael Jackson had died. It was Martha Stewart who told me! Yes, that is right, Martha Stewart. She had just tweeted that she hoped the rumor that Michael Jackson had died was not true. I immediately turned on the TV and sure enough, it was on every channel. At that time the death had not been confirmed but it was imminent. We always remember when a person of fame dies just where we were and how we found out the news. I have always liked Michael Jackson. From the days when we were kids, watching him on the Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand and even the Jackson 5 cartoon show up to present day. I never bought even one of his albums, never attended any of his concerts, so it was not that I was a die-hard fan, but still I enjoyed his music, his videos and his dancing. During the rough times when he was accused of horrible things I stood by him and hoped he was innocent. To this day I don't know if he was guilty or innocent but I still liked him nonetheless. He was a musical genius, the likes that we've never seen. Now he's gone from this world. May he rest in peace.

update: Well this afternoon I broke down and bought my very first Michael Jackson recording... I bought a song I have always loved called "Will You Be There". It has a gospel sound to it and I recall seeing him perform this on TV one time with an angel that folded its wings around him... very touching. You can view the video here:
Will You Be There

The Blue Ridge Parkway

As I have mentioned already, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway on our trip to the mountains. I was surprised to see how poor the roads were these days. Wow! Talk about potholes! Very, very poor surface on most of the drive. Quite a few of the scenic overlooks were closed for construction repairs so that was a bummer. Another problem I had was the fact that there were numerous cyclists on the road. For those that have never traveled on the Parkway before, this is a 2-lane road with a max speed limit of 45mph. It is quite curvy with breath-taking scenery of the mountains. On Saturday we encountered a ton of bicycles and finally decided to make a game of counting them. We estimate that we passed somewhere around 50-100 cyclists BEFORE we started counting. We then counted 26 before reaching our destination. On the ride home we passed 34 cyclists. Having so many on the road and having to share the lanes with all the car traffic made for dangerous situations. I really feel that there needs to be bike lanes or they need to be banned from riding there. It is entirely too dangerous to try to pass them with all the traffic on the road. I understand that it is a popular ride for cyclists but still... got to consider safety first! Just my opinion...

The Gems

These are the gems that David and I found. Hannah took her large bag home with her. I put our finds together and tried to separate them into piles of color. Hannah had mostly large stones in her bag. The purple amethyst were the dominate stones we found. Now I want to buy a rock tumbler and polish these stones. The man at the mine who looked thru my stones told me that they look beautiful if you put all the small ones in a glass jar and fill it with baby oil and set it in a window for the sun to hit it. I can't wait to do that! Here are a couple of photos for you to see just how many gems we actually found.

Beautiful Scenery

I wanted to share some of my favorite scenic photos that I took while on the trip. This is such an amazingly beautiful part of the world and some parts are simply breathtaking. Enjoy!

Photos

A few random "people photos" taken on the trip to share with you.

Hannah at one of the overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Hannah smiling in the sun in front of the magnificent mountains

Hannah posing in the rocks under some trees at an overlook stop


David and Linda at one of the overlook stops

Linda and David huddling up to stay warm on the trail up to the Mt. Mitchell summit.

YES, it was as cold as it looks!

David and Linda

We found this beautiful spot for photos just off the trail to the summit of Mt. Mitchell

Hannah and Linda

Can you tell how cold we are?

Hannah poses on the pretty rocks

Mount Mitchell

On our way home we took a side trip to Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains at 6,684 feet in elevation. Located off of the Blue Ridge Parkway where the temperature drops quickly and you drive up into the clouds is where you will find Mt. Mitchell. I have been there a number of times, always in the summer months when it is very hot but every single time it has been cold and cloudy there. A trip there on a hot summers day is perfect! Refreshing! We parked and went into the museum first then on the steep paved trail up to the summit where there is an observation tower and the burial spot of Dr. Elisha Mitchell who died in a fall while trying to prove that his mountain was the highest east of the Rockies. He had been in a contest with a former student of his, Thomas Clingman, who thought Clingman's Dome located in eastern Tennessee was higher. (Mt. Nitchell is indeed 32 feet higher than Clingman's Dome). It was very windy and quite chilly on the summit yesterday. Fortunately there were not a lot of tourists there, not like on other times I've been there anyway. This meant better photo ops for us and we took advantage of that. Knowing how cold it can be even during the summer months I had packed jackets for us and we were very happy to have them. Hannah still complained that she was freezing and was very happy to get back in the truck afterward. The observation deck was a bust because we were in the clouds and you could barely see a few feet in front of you so there were no beautiful views to be seen from the top on this trip. I'm told that at times you can actually see but every time I've been there has been exactly like yesterday. Nonetheless it was quite an invigorating experience and I thought the temp felt wonderful. I have to share with you the thing that was most memorable for me while at Mt. Mitchell. It was the heavy scent of balsam. Right after we got out of the truck in the parking lot you could smell the balsam trees that dotted the mountian top. I'm not sure I've ever smelled that in the wild before. It was heavenly! Last night as we went to bed I could still get a whiff of it from time to time like it was still in my nose. So refreshing!

the entrance to the park

elevation sign in the parking lot area, notice how foggy it appears up in the clouds

Hannah wanted to point this out to her Dad since he lives in Canada


Hannah at the summit where the elevation is 6,684 feet.
Dr. Elisha Mitchell's grave is located behind her
in front of the observation tower



Dr. Elisha Mitchell's grave
he died 27 June 1857
and is buried on the hightest point of his mountain



Hannah is stretched out on the map of North Carolina
If you look in the left between her hand and the letter W you will see a large dark circle which indicates the location of Mt. Mitchell

Wildlife in the Mountains

On Sunday morning we got up and packed up everything, stopped for breakfast then went to the NC Mineral Museum and took the tour there. The trip up to the mountains and back were via the Blue Ridge Parkway. We saw a total of six wild turkeys while on the trip. So exciting! Most of the time I wasn't quick enough to get a photo but I did manage to get a few shots. Also while driving along we saw one group of three wild turkey's and pulled over to take a picture of them. Immediately three mules started running toward us and scared the turkey's away. I imagine someone in a white truck must feed them each day because when they saw our truck you should have seen them running to get as close to the fence as possible. I'm not sure who the mules belong to as there are no homes up there. I did get a photo of them and will post it here for you to see.

The Cabin

After a full day of driving to the mountains, taking in all the spectacular scenery, eating lunch at the drive-in, looking for gems, and touring the mine we headed to the campground and the little cabin we had rented for the night. We got settled in and David started a campfire. I had planned our entire dinner to be cooked on the fire.... we were having campers hash, corn on the cob and a grilled bannans recipe I found in a magazine that sounded yummy (and it was!). Hannah and I made up the hash packets, the banana packets and rolled the corn in foil. We had everything ready and David had a very nice fire going. Just as it was time to put everything in the fire the rain started and boy did it ever rain. The weather forecast had said that for the first time all week there was no rain in the area with the exception of isolated showers... well we must have been located in one of those "isolated" areas because we were hit hard. David got the small umbrella out of the truck and tried to protect the fire and managed to get the meal cooked. He was soaking wet by the time it was cooked. And would you believe the rain stopped as soon as the food was cooked. It poured the entire time he was cooking which was about 30 minutes and stopped as soon as he was finished. Everything turned out well. While David was cooking I took the opportunity to make "moon crater" cheese crackers. I had a magazine that had some fun things to do with kids in it and found this one using swiss cheese and cutting it into rounds and placing on a round cracker to talk about the moon and its craters. It was fun and educational. After dinner we played a game and then sat around the campfire until we were all ready for bed. We called it a night and we all slept so well in the cool mountian air. I can't believe I didn't take a photo of our little cabin. Oh well... it was cute!

Hannah showing off her moon crater cheese cracker

Poor David getting wet while cooking our dinner in a down pour

Playing a game after dinner

The Mines

After gem mining we shopped in the gift shop and I bought Hannah a geode... she always loves getting those and cracking them open with a hammer to see the gems inside (this one was beautiful inside). We then went across the street to the old mines and took the self guided tour of the mine. They used to mine felspar here and used it to make Bon Ami cleanser which was 90% crushed felspar and 10% soap. The mine we toured was intersting with lots of the old, rusted equipment used to mine the stone.

Hannah checking out some of the equipment

Emerald Village

We arrived at Emerald Village around 2:00pm and bought a big bucket of muddy stones hoping to seek our fortunes and leave there filthy rich. It didn't exactly happen that way. The whole experience was worth more than money could ever buy though. Hannah absolutely loved it! We took the big bucket along with the shovels and our cups and found a spot on the flume to sift thru the rocks. Much to my surprise we found lots and lots of gems. I have been to several of these places since I was a kid and you normally only find a little chip or two of a gem if you are lucky. This time there were tons of gems in every scoop. We would take a little shovel full of rocks and empty them into the screen trays and let the water run thru and clean them off and pull out the gems. I concentrated mostly on the tiny ones myself. I picked out all I could find before discarding the white stones (the ones the experts working there told us were no good). After we finished the large bucket we each took our finds into the shop and the experts there laid them all out on trays and told us what all we had. NICE! Nothing was of real big value but there were lots of nice pieces. We found emeralds, quartz, garnet, amethyst, aquamarine, topaz, moonstone and all sorts of others that I can't remember the names of at the moment. It was a wonderful experience. Afterward they packed up all the stones we had collected in plastic bags for us to take home. Hannah was so thrilled with her gems. David and I were thrilled with our finds too. What a fun day!

some of our gems... David's cup on the left, Hannah's in the center and mine on the right.

Christmas Tree Farms

On the drive to the Emerald Village we passed a big Christmas tree farm. These are numerous in this part of NC. This particualr one was called Alpine Village and had a ton of trees going all the way up to the top of the mountain.

Christmas trees as far as you can see up the mountain