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North America’s Only Pearl Farm
My son, Micah, got fascinated with pearls somewhere along the way. He also discovered that they’re his birthstone. The last time we were in Las Vegas, we were walking through the mall at the Aladdin and there was a booth that had some oysters you could buy to take out a pearl. He had some of his own hard-earned kid money to use for a souvenir. I told him that he could spend it on that if he wanted to but suggested that he wait until he looked around some more before making his decision. As we went along he had many questions as usual. I told him that they probably stuck those pearls in the oyster and that if he could wait, we could probably find a real pearl farm and take a trip there to see how it’s all really done. He asked me if I really meant that and I said, “Yes”. So being a good bit more self-disciplined about waiting and spending than your average 8-year-old, Micah decided he would wait and hold Dad to his promise.
It didn’t take a whole lot of poking around on the Internet to realize that most pearl farms are in Asia. However, I finally stumbled across North America’s only pearl farm and to my delight, it wasn’t too far from us – about an hour and a half drive from Nashville. I also discovered that they had a museum and did full tours. Perfect!
To book a full tour you have to have 15 or more or you have to add on to an existing tour. When the first tour we added onto canceled we ended up having to do it on pretty short notice but it was on a Saturday so we were able to squeeze the whole trip into a single weekend.
We flew out on a Friday afternoon from Atlanta to Nashville and got first class on a CRJ900. That’s a nice plane and I was excited to get the opportunity to fly on one – especially in first.
I maintain the “Limited Time Offers” from SkyMiles partners on delta.com so thought I would try it out. I got a great Hertz deal on our rental car by linking over to Hertz from delta.com. The total was only $32 including tax for two days and I got some bonus miles to boot.
The pearl farm is at a marina on Kentucky Lake close to Camden, TN. There is an RV park and cabins but no cabins were available so they recommended the Homeplace Inn Best Western in Camden. We stayed in an immaculate room there and received awesome personal service. “Continental” breakfast was way above standard with fresh Belgium waffles cooked to order and sausage gravy and biscuits.
We went over to the marina/pearl farm that Saturday morning. We got there at about 10am and the tour did not begin until 11am. But they were having a little fishing tournament for kids down at the docks. We were too late to enter the tournament but Micah got to throw in and fish for a little while before our tour.
The tour began with a talk from the owner who told us how the operation began at that location. The farm has been in a large spread in National Geographic and on television several times. He also told us all about the fresh water mussels and how they are seeded to grow the pearls. There’s also a little pearl museum and store with all kinds of interesting things to see and to buy. We also saw a video in the museum.
Next was a trip down to the Marina where a diver was waiting under the water and came up with a bag of natural mussels from the bottom of the lake. He told us about the different varieties as he opened them up and cleaned them out to reveal the beautiful mother-of-pearl shells. They also brought over one of the wire frames that house the mussels that have been seeded. It takes about 5 years to grow a pearl. Micah was completely enthralled as they opened them up to reveal the sparkling jewels.
We got a couple of the shells that they had opened up for $12 each. They had instructed us on how to clean and polish them. Micah also got a small souvenir pearl for $10.
We headed from there back to Nashville so I could get my souvenir – a Hard Rock Café signature guitar pin. We did not even know there was a huge country music festival in town so getting the pin was a task unto itself. Tennessee is a beautiful state and Nashville has a cool downtown area with all kinds of little clubs and cafes and of course there’s the Grand Ole Opry and country music stuff galore. I hope to go back and visit when I’ve got a day or two I can dedicate to Nashville.
Photos
Pearl Farm
Birdsong Resort
Best Western Camden
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How cool is that! Who woulda thunk it?
