Yesterday morning, we left Knoxville, driving eastward through the foggy Tennessee Valley. After crossing the Holston and French Broad Rivers (which join to form the Tennessee), we climbed into the Blue Ridge Mountains, following the course of the Pigeon River. Leveling out west of Asheville, we crossed the divide between the Pigeon and the French Broad Rivers, encountering the largest concentration of tent caterpillars that I have ever seen.
At Asheville, we angled southward on Interstate 26 and crossed the Eastern Divide just south of Hendersonville; this Divide, which snakes north to south through Eastern Canada and the Eastern U.S., separates the watersheds of rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico from those flowing toward the Atlantic Ocean. South of the Divide, we soon arrived at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and were treated to a spectacular view of the Southeastern Piedmont.
After undulating across the Piedmont, hemmed in by a pine-broadleaf forest, we crossed the Fall Line at Columbia, leaving the Precambrian bedrock of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont and traveling across the flat, sandy soil of the Coastal Plain. We'll spend a few days along the South Carolina coast before heading south to Florida.
At Asheville, we angled southward on Interstate 26 and crossed the Eastern Divide just south of Hendersonville; this Divide, which snakes north to south through Eastern Canada and the Eastern U.S., separates the watersheds of rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico from those flowing toward the Atlantic Ocean. South of the Divide, we soon arrived at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and were treated to a spectacular view of the Southeastern Piedmont.
After undulating across the Piedmont, hemmed in by a pine-broadleaf forest, we crossed the Fall Line at Columbia, leaving the Precambrian bedrock of the Blue Ridge and Piedmont and traveling across the flat, sandy soil of the Coastal Plain. We'll spend a few days along the South Carolina coast before heading south to Florida.
