Fairy Stone: Day 3

The Legend of the Fairy Stone
Once upon a time, about two thousand years ago, the fairies around Sugar Loaf Mountain were gathered to sing and dance to thank their Creator for the coming of Spring. Their joyous celebration was interrupted by a strange elfin messenger from a faraway land. He brought news that the Son of the Creator had been killed on a cross. In their sorrow, the fairies sprinkled the ground with their tears. Instead of drying away, these tears crystallized into crosses. If you visit there today, you can still find little cross-shaped stones.

Hunting for Fairy Stones

Monday evening, near the Farmer's Market, the Rangers brought a trough filled with soil and rocks. They encouraged the children to sift through it for Fairy Stones. Wednesday morning we drove out to the Fairy Stone hunt site, which is a wooded area people are permitted to look for stones, provided they don't bring digging tools.
I honestly think we had better luck in the trough of soil. The hunt site seemed rather picked over.
There is a little convenience store that shares a parking lot. By their register, they have perfect crosses, with an eyelet through them for necklaces. I was sorely tempted to purchase, but thought that might discourage the children with what they had found.

Mabry Mill and Rocky Knob
We drove to Mabry Mill for lunch. I recommend the sweet potato pancakes, as well as the pulled pork. If I'd noticed Ed's Special: pulled pork and cheese between two cornmeal pancakes, I would have ordered that. The gift shop was charming. There was a small section that included "Made in America" items. The cute bags of grain with an image of Mabry Mill on the sack would have been more tempting if the grain was actually ground at the mill. Baby Q got a board book with photographs of deer to look at in his high chair while the rest of us enjoyed lunch. T got a pressed penny.

The walk around the mill was enjoyable. The boys recognized the trestles from a scene in Tangled, and said so. We walked through the mill area. The outside wheel turns, but most of the inside components are not hooked up. Most amusing was the moonshine display down in the woods (sorry, no picture).

Mabry Mill is bordered on one side by the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had been disappointed to only drive about a hundred feet on it getting to Mabry Mill, so we decided to drive a few miles to Rocky Knob. The view was beautiful! I wanted to at least hike the one mile Picnic Area Loop, but the children wanted to go swimming and get dinner, so we just enjoyed the overlook for a few minutes.