A Lovely Weekend

Our son, his wife, and their daughter came to visit for the weekend. I caught this before bedtime reading of an old classic, "The Little Engine That Could". To think how this was a reenactment of many years previously with one or several on my lap or around me on the arms and back of the chair.

On Sunday afternoon, after church, we went to nearby Steele Creek Park. I am very thankful that his picture turned out so well, because I attempted to take many other pictures at the park, but my cellphone camera (1) did not work. The picture partially reveals some amazing characteristics of the park. Two parallel ridges that run the 12-mile length of the park, cleaved at about the midpoint by a stream which has been dammed up to make a lake. From the vantage point of this picture, you can see Holston Mountain in the far distance. My son's family makes a handsome sight, and it is growing (2).

We also walked over a large, grassed area to a playground. Our granddaughter is particularly fond of slides. We walked by the lake, watching the ducks, all the while enjoying the pleasantly warm and sunny day. We took a short ride on the small gauge railroad.

On Monday morning, we went to The Cave (3). If you are a frequent visitor to my blog, then you know this cave. I told the owner that I may need to buy stock in the cave because by the time that I bring all my family members, I will have been there many times. The sinkhole entrance has caved in at some previous point. When made into a commercial cave, the first chore was to clear out many tons of trash, for it had been used as a dump for many years.

The three different tours that I have had in the cave have been done by three different people. The first one was very geological in nature, the second one was historical in nature, and the third one was comedic with a generous sprinkling of random cultural, historical, cave passage, and governmental trivia. The formations in this cave are not so beautiful as others I have seen in other caves, but there is a good variety with a preponderance of long dripping cracks.

The modern LED flashlights make picture taking more possible. The colors range from white (mostly calcite) to black (manganese compounds), green for algae growing on some formations because of previous incandescent lighting (4), pinks and purples for small impurity minerals, terracotta clay layers, ubiquitous gray of the limestones, and glowing colors of minerals under blacklight.

This 140' passage is the most beautiful of the cave. If you pound your feet, it resounds with the hollowness of a presently undiscovered passage, they say.

I am glad to see that momma keeps little one warm. This is in the tallest room with a ceiling of up to about 40'.

The creek is 170' below the surface at one point. It exits out yonder entrance, allowing very much exchange of air and healthier bats (5).

Here you can see some of the algae mentioned earlier.

There is one pleased daddy! This part of the cave where you descend and ascend from the sinkhole shows significant past waterflow. Since even the most drastic recent rain events do not get more than a slight flow, it must harken back to the Worldwide Flood of Noah's day. Uniformitarianism simply does not explain many formations, including the growth rate of stalactites.

You should see in person the uniqueness and sharpness of some these formations, looking for all the world like sharks' teeth.

1. The electronics are glitching more frequently on the camera. Sometimes when I turn it on, the screen is majority white or at other times all white. I have to turn it off and back on to get it to work. Other times the screen flashes as it would when a picture is taken but no picture is taken. This is very frustrating.

2. Look closer if you don't see it, 13th grandchild on the way.

3. I have taken to calling it The Cave because this was the third time that I have been to Appalachian Caverns in a year. 

4. The tour guide this time, who is the owner by the way, says that now that there is LED lighting throughout the cave, this should remedy itself.

5. The tour guides tell me that it is the only cave around that has not had an infestation of White Nose Syndrome. They believe the exchange of air and generally drier conditions enable this boon.

Red Fork Falls and Beauty Spot

A small tease just before the main course

The top of the falls is deceptive. It almost appears as though you could go down the face of the cascade. Evidently, many have tried and been badly injured or worse. We preferred to look and go around.

Based on the moss and liverworts, this must be a continuously wet cliff suggesting more water than we saw this day.

The falls is 100 feet high with a deep little pool and the base.

I enjoyed the bright, mossy greenery.

I like to explore. Can you tell?

In tumbles over the metamorphically foliated rocks in a narrow draw with overarching trees, feeling more isolated than it really is. 

This rock sluice below the falls was mesmerizing. From the top of the falls to several hundred yards downstream, the creek bed is almost nonstop bedrock with scarce gravel in one or two pools. In fact, the last pool we viewed was a solid rock bowl without any gravel or pebbles in it. The bottom had a bluish tint surrounded in the shallow by a thin layer of mud. Evidently, the current runs deep and keeps the bottom clean of silt and sand.

The yellow birch leaf looks shellacked as though for a leaf collection on the boulder surface. Note the identifying characteristics of double serrated leaf margin, little protruded point, and veins like a Beech tree.

Cascade a short distance downstream

... and another

... and another

We clamored up a tributary for perhaps 150 yards to see what other water paths of interest were there. Usually you think of water determining creek beds, but the slants and cracks of the rock definitely predominate the path finding of the water here.

The shelf fungi had a color and texture like calcite formations in a cave.

I appear to have chosen the easier side of the creek to ascend.

We found this unique little falls before turning around.

I see this little shamrock-looking plant in wet environments in the mountains fairly regularly, but I don't actually know what is called.

Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata)

Rattlesnake Plantain just past blooming

A break in the trees along the gravel road opened up a memorable view, because the light green peak is Hump Mountain near the town of Roan Mtn, TN, my old stompin' grounds.

Bottle Gentian

Beauty Spot is a very accessible, open view. On any Friday, Saturday, or Sunday evening it seems as though half the local couples come to watch the sunset.

The view east is toward the more mountainous NC.

The end of a beautiful Sunday of worship and exploring. 

I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of the little hike up Unaka Mountain. Come to think of it, I did- Bottle Gentian- but I should have taken a few images of the melancholy spruce stand on the peak. The trunks are not large but somehow it looks old and undisturbed. These mountains are beautiful, and I enjoy sharing them with my young friend who is from the West Coast. They are so different than there and yet so similar in how the point to the infinite, powerful, kind Creator.