Mason's Mine & Cherokee N.C.

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Wednesday, 3 June:

We left Serena's around 8:30am, heading for Mason's Mine, near Franklin, N.C. After about 3 hours of driving mostly on small roads, we arrived atg Mason's Ruby & Saphire Mine. I believe this is the only place where you can still dig your own dirt and isn't "seeded". They maintain a board listing all stones found there over 10 carats. There were already quite a few this year, and two were added that day. Unfortunately, neither of them were mine or Manoli's. We spent about 5 hours there and had a good time. It didn't rain and it wasn't that hot. Manoli found 2 smaller, but nice stones about 1 or 1 1/2 carats each. I found 8 stones ranging from 1/2 carat to almost 4 carats, with 2 or 3 nice ones about 2 to 2 1/2 carats each. This enjoyable experience cost $30 each. Leaving Mason's, we followed our laptop GPS over some of the windiest roads in North Carolina to the Cherokee. After arriving at the Cherokee KOA, we headed into town for dinner and some strolling. I have to say our impression of Cherokee this time was sort of like a Twilight Zone story where a nuclear holocaust has almost wiped out humanity, with the town almost desolate. Only 1 out of 10 businesses were open and I think we saw more natives than tourists! The economy? We did locate an excellent restaurant, Paul's, where we ate Indian flatbread with chili and cheese and an Indian Taco. Both were excellent and plenty big enough. Back in the KOA, we were amazed to discover that the WiFi wasn't free! $2.99 per hour or $7.99 for the day. We did find out when checking out the next morning that they would have given us an access code to use it for free, but of course they'd failed to mention that when checking in that evening. Well, tomorrow we have a long 8 hour drive to Virginia Beach, Virginia. I took some video of Manoli mining and will try to get it posted tomorrow if I can figure it out.

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Photos

Cherokee KOA
View the Cherokee KOA and the "smokey" mountains around it.

Cabin at Cherokee KOA
J.C.in front of our Kamping Kabin at the Cherokee KOA

Paul's Restaurant
The restaurant where we ate dinner in Cherokee and had Indian flatbread.