This morning we had coffee and homemade apple pie with the beautiful Grandma Newton and Uncle Don. Afterwards, we left Lawrenceville, Georgia and headed up into the north Georgia hills and the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. We rode beautiful and very woodsy tree lined roads and along rivers and lakes and had a nice stop over at a little road side store where Lisa had her first taste of the yummy and salty Boiled Peanuts that Georgia is famous for. It was a beautiful day today; not too hot with clear skies.
We crossed the border into North Carolina and stopped in a little town called Franklin, where in our quest for good BarBQue across the states, we found it in this town and had fantastic ribs for dinner along with a couple of margaritas (which Lisa got carded for despite turning 33 this coming weekend! haha!) and are settling in for a good night's sleep.
Franklin, North Carolina also happens to be a provisioning point just 10 miles from the Appalachian Trail. We met hikers a few weeks into their 2177 mile hike through the mountains from Georgia to Maine (recently extended by a few miles). Average hikes take about 6 months and it sounds amazing!
On a sadder note... We got the terrible news today that Suffolk, Virgina, which is a couple hundred miles north of us and near our path, was hit by six tornadoes on Monday. Miles of neighborhoods were destroyed, a couple hundred people were injured, and too many homes were totally destroyed, but luckily no lives were lost. Virginia isn't normally an active tornado area so this came as quite a shock. Our thoughts are with those in Virginia tonight.
2 comments:
Awesome. So great to hear words on the AT and Franklin, and the Smokes, with "a bar and a church on each corner". So So strange. It was 2164 back in my day. . . I think. She's gotten longer!! Those were such great days. Great motorcycle country too. What do you think of the sweet tea?? What about the boiled peanuts. . . I love them. We used to eat them at dove hunts all the time.
A question: where did you hear the bit about the oak grove being the largest living organism; that and it's being on the AT??
As far as I know, oaks are not root sprouters, so don't have a single genetic organism generate "multiple "trees" from one origanol. However, what I think you are refering to, and I do know something about, is a large aspen grove which has been proven to be a single organism. Aspens do sprout from undifferenciated cells in the root (I could have my biology askew), hence one tree could have many trunks.
I have heard two versions of this though: I thought this grove was in the UP of Michigan. More recently I heard it was in CO, which, frankly makes much more sense.
There is another monster organism, called the Humongous Fungus, which also stakes a claim as the worlds largest living organism. Perhaps it was in th UP. I'll try and find out.
Will we see you soon then??? I will be in Charleston for the weekend. . . so you may have to catch me there.
Yep. . . well sort of. I was wrong about both UP and CO - or at least my sources were.
But perhaps I was right about the aspen and the Humungus Fungus. Check it out. Cool stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organism
Didn't know there was ever a bigger tree than the General Sherman.
I have another trivia question for you: do you know what the oldest living thing in the world is? And how old do you think it is?
Finally, I will check and see if the answer I've been giving all these years (since dendrology class) is correct by wikipedia standards.
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