Nantahala Talc and Limestone Mine- Swain County, North Carolina
Little Pine Garnet Mine - Madison County, North Carolina
Harrodsburg Road Cut Geodes - Monroe County, Indiana
October 23-27, 2003
By Everett Harrington
jesus_everett@hotmail.com

Hi Gang!

Field trip report from last weekend.

My Mom, Celia, and I started for NC Thurs night after I got out of work. We drove to Lexington KY and stopped for the night at a motel 6.

Next morning we went to Halls gap hunting geodes. I found quite as few and forgot to take any pics. I'll post pics later on when I get the time to open the geodes.

After hunting at Halls we drove to Asheville NC. It was a great drive down. The views are just beautiful. We stayed at Rockola motel (BATES MOTEL). It was the terrible room from hell....warning do not stay here while visiting Asheville!!!!!

We woke the next morning and went to meet Mike at the Nantahala Talc and Limestone Mine . We took the long route getting there on time even though we left Asheville at 7:45am. This is where we all parked to collect at the quarry. Note how tall the wall is. Later pics show how high we were at the top.

Road to the top of the quarry on right.

Jeff Deere and I were in the back of Mike's pickup. It was quite a bumpy ride to the top. The funny part about it is we had to stop about half way up to decide how to go over a large rut. I seen it and told Jeff to duck. As the engine revved and we started up the very steep incline Jeff looks at me and says" THAT STREETER'S OUT OF CONTROL!!!!" SO Mad Max (Mike) took us to the top where he found some really nice aragonite and even shared his finds with the rest of us!

Here's Mike putting the hurt to a large boulder where the aragonite xls were.

The views from the top of the Quarry were beautiful!

After the quarry field trip we headed to Mike and Chrissy's house so they could get cleaned up for the get together. They showed us their museum of fine pieces from all over the country. Most better than what is seen in museums! Their hospitality was the best I have ever seen! Thanks again Mike and Chrissy!

We drove following Mike to the gathering. By this time they already had the food on the grills. The cooks did a great job feeding all of us hungry hounds! Thanks RD and Wayne, among others!!!! We had our rock swap and TALL stories time then we all called it a night. Mother and I stopped at a Motel 8 that night....slept good!

We went to Mike's the next day to buy his book and get directions to the Little Pine Garnet mine. Found quite a few nice garnets there! Nice directions in the book Mike!

I have been to Harrodsburg road cut 3 times before and never went to the second level. I found some really nice calcites here on this trip. This is also the location for the millerite here. I have several buckets of geodes I need to open. I will keep everybody posted as to what I find.

The exit for Harrodsburg

Drove back home to the dull MI life wishing we never would have left!

KOR

Everett

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