We left Maggie Valley after breakfast. We hooked up with the Blue Ridge Parkway and that was spectacular as well. Again we stopped at almost all of the view spots and I took loads of pics. Halfway through we stopped at a restaurant near Mt. Mitchell. The view was spectacular and the food wasn't to bad either. I felt so relaxed and by some miracle my Fibro hadn't acted up. I had thought since I had done so much exercise and moving around that I would be hurting but strangely enough that wasn't the case. I was for the first time in a long time with out any stress. Anyway, we stopped and did some sightseeing and hiking. Then when we made it to Little Switzerland we got off of the Blue Ridge Parkway and made it onto SR 226.
Now where the parkway had places where if you veered to much you would hit trees and go down the side of a cliff, 226 was very scary. There were places where this could happen and no trees to catch you. Anyway, we made it to Spruce Pine, NC around 2 p.m. We got a hotel room and since we had so much time we went to one of our first mining spots. We went to the Rio Doce Gem Mine http://www.riodoce.com. This is more of a store with a spot to do some sloushing. What they do is import dirt and rocks from their mine in Brazil and put it in buckets for people to sift. The visiting miner gets a sifter pan and they put dirt & rocks into it and then shake it in some running water and clean off the rocks to find rough gems. We bought a huge bucket and sifted for about 2 hours. It was so much fun because we found all of these beautiful colorful rocks and we knew that they were something but didn't quite know what. After we had done this we went inside and they told us what we had found. We found emeralds, rubies, citrine, many different kinds of quartz, tourmaline and amethyst. Michael found an emerald and since we got a free gem cutting with the large bucket we decided to have that one cut so we could send it to Michael's mom. We then went and had dinner and went back to the hotel and crashed.
The next day (Wednesday) we had a reservation at Gem Mountain http://www.gemmountain.com/. Our reservation was to do some actual mining. We covered ourselves with sunscreen and packed up some water, got in a van and were taken to a spot to mine. Basically the owners dig up a side of a mountain and then let you dig it up. We each got a bucket and spent four hours digging in the dirt. It was in the 90s and were were very dirty. But all 3 of use had a lot of rocks that we thought were gems. We went back to the store and did our sloushing of all of our treasures. I had the most rocks because I stayed the whole 4 hours in one place in a little hole. Between all of us we ended up with aquamarine, amethyst, garnets, ametrine (one of my favorites), etc... We then bought a small bucket of stuff that had been mined by the owner. We found more gems. It was such an exciting day. To dig and dig and then come up with pretty rocks that could be cut and made into jewelry was awesome. I decided to have one of my amethysts cut - I should get it in 10 weeks.
After all of that we went to have dinner and then back to the room. We figured we would get up around 8 or 9 and start our way back home with some more sight seeing. Unfortunately I woke up at 1:30 a.m. with my head itching. I scratched and scratched and it would not stop itching. I figured that when I took my shower I did not get all of the dust out of my hair so I went in to take a shower. During the shower my hands started to itch as well. My face started right after that. It was such a burning itch that I started to cry because it just wouldn't stop. I noticed that my lips, tongue and finger were swelling. I got out of the shower and woke up Michael. I figured I needed Benedryl asap. By the time he woke Patrick up and we were in the car I realized that Benedryl wasn't going to help that we needed to get to the hospital for something stronger. Of course we were in a small town, nothing was open and I couldn't remember where I had seen the hospital sign from our earlier drive around the town. Thankfully they had a 24 hour Walmart. When we got there we saw 2 police officers in the parking lot and Michael asked where the hospital was. On our way there my throat started to close and my tongue was so swollen that I could only breathe a little. When we got to the ER I could barely breathe. The nurse helped me to a bed and the Dr. came in right away while Michael and Patrick went to register me. Right before the nurse and Dr. I broke out into hives all over my body. I could barely speak because my tongue was so swollen. They gave me a shot of Prednisone and Benedryl. The swelling stopped and breathing became a little easier. We were there until about 3:30 a.m. It was one of the scariest moments in my life. The Dr. said we may never know what caused the allergic reaction. We went back to the motel, went back to sleep and woke up around 10 a.m.
Michael drove all the way home in one day. He wanted to get me home as soon as possible in case I needed anything and knowing that after that I just wanted to be home in my own bed.
So here we are back at home a little early. Funny - but it didn't ruin the vacation. I was scared but I knew it was going to be ok either way. The drive and whole vacation was wonderful and I have 2 more days left before I have to go back to work. So we will have to think of something else to do - to keep the party going.
No comments:
Post a Comment