Guilford Courthouse National Military Park

Greensboro, N.C. Visited: October 31, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 277 of 353 NPS Website WHAT IS IT? Site of a bloody March 15, 1781 Revolutionary War battle won by the British forces commanded by General Cornwallis. BEAUTY (6/10) Battlefield endangerment purists probably won’t like it here because much of the Battleground lays outside the Park [...]

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Blue Ridge Parkway

stretches from Shenandoah NP, Va. to Great Smoky Mountains NP, Tenn. Visited: October 30, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 276 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? 469 miles of two-lane road that follows the Appalachian Mountain ridgeline, each mile more breathtaking than the last. BEAUTY (10/10) The Parkway rides the long, bumpy spine [...]

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Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

Middlesboro, Ky. Visited: October 29, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 274 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? Mountain crossing where hundreds of thousands of pioneers from 1775 to 1810 crossed the Appalachians and into the unknown frontier. BEAUTY (7/10) Present-day westward travelers no longer take U.S. Route 25A over the Cumberland Gap. In [...]

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Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area

near Oneida, Tenn. and Stearns, Ky. Visited: October 28, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 273 of 353 NPS Website WHAT IS IT? Over 125,000 acres of Cumberland Plateau coal country. The Park is largely a reclamation of lands completely stripped by large-scale mining that are now blossoming with new trees, recovering waters and oodles of outdoor [...]

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Obed Wild and Scenic River

near Wartburg, Tenn. Visited: October 28, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 272 of 353 NPS Website WHAT IS IT? The Obed WSR protects a few dozen miles of some of the last free-flowing water left in Tennessee. BEAUTY (7/10) The scenery was a lot more beautiful than we had ever imagined. The Clear Creek and Obed [...]

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Great Smoky Mountains National Park

near Gatlinburg, Tenn. Visited: October 26, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 271 of 353 NPS Website WHAT IS IT? Wonderfully vast and diverse Appalachian mountain park that boasts over 500,000 acres and more plant species than the continent of Europe. This wilderness playground is home to many superlatives including our most visited National Park and our [...]

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Carl Sandburg National Historic Site

Flat Rock, N.C. Visited: October 26, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 270 of 353 NPS Website WHAT IS IT? Longtime home (and goat farm) of Carl Sandburg, famed 20th-century American poet and Abraham Lincoln biographer. BEAUTY (6/10) The Sandburg’s whitewashed clapboard house is probably the least impressive home along the streets of Flat Rock. Its interior [...]

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Cowpens National Battlefield

near Chesnee, S.C. Visited: October 24, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 269 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? Site of a flat, frontier pasture where, on January 17, 1781, the Continental Army led by General Daniel Morgan soundly defeated the proud British Legion led by General Banastre “Bloody” Tarleton. BEAUTY (4/10) The historic [...]

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Kings Mountain National Military Park

Blacksburg, S.C. Visited: October 24, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 268 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? Site of an important Revolutionary War battle where, on October 7, 1780, a ragtag force of Scots-Irish Appalachian mountain men obliterated the Loyalist battalion led by flashy British Maj. Patrick Ferguson. BEAUTY (6/10) Kings Mountain NMP [...]

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Ninety Six National Historic Site

near Greenwood, S.C. Visited: October 23, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 267 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? Site of, on November 19, 1775, the first major land-based Revolutionary War battle south of New England as well as, in June of 1781, the War’s longest siege. BEAUTY (6/10) It would be difficult to [...]

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