Carolina Picture of the Week....

Here is a picture I took while Blaise and I were cruising the Blue Ridge Parkway on the Harley - early this past fall.


I am humbled by the forces that formed these gentle rolling hills and ancient rocks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And, as intently as they have been studied - they are only partially understood as the events that took place to create our mountains "were many and complex" and took place millions, even billions of years ago.


" Geologists believe the Grenville Orogeny—a collision of earth's sliding plates—formed the basement rock of the Blue Ridge, forcing up the first Appalachians that wore down before the present-day mountains formed. That event happened more than 1 billion years ago. As the continents broke apart about 750 million years ago, a sustained period of volcanic action followed. Evidence of viscous lava flows can still be found at Mount Rogers in the southwestern Blue Ridge Highlands.

A final orogeny—again a collision caused by continental drift—ended a mere 250 million years ago. The basement rocks were once again forced up and over adjacent younger layers of rock to the west. If layers of younger sedimentary rock such as limestone were on top, they completely eroded away to expose the ancient bedrock once again. Because of the east-to-west direction of the thrust, younger rocks in Shenandoah National Park are exposed to the west, and older Precambrian granites to the east. The metamorphic and igneous rocks—gneisses, schists, quartzites, greenstones, and granites—were formed by intense pressure and heat, and left few fossils."


If you'd like to learn more about the Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge Parkway and/or the Shenandoah Valley, click here: http://www.sherpaguides.com/virginia/mountains/blue_ridge/index.html

We spend alot of time in these mountains with and without kids! Western North Carolina is only a 1 1/2 -4 hour drive from Raleigh - depending upon where you want to go and offers a myriad of outdoor activities for the entire family.