The Shipley Farms Field Guide · Water

The Journey of a Raindrop

Follow one drop of rain from a hillside at Shipley Farms, down Linville Creek and eight more rivers, all the way to the sea. Scroll, and the drop travels with you.

Distance to the sea: 3,025 km
In miles: 1,880 mi
Rivers and creeks: 9
Height it falls: 2,850 ft

0.0km0.0milesShipley Farms

0Start

The drop lands

About 50 inches of rain fall on Shipley Farms in a year. Our drop lands on a hillside about 2,900 feet above the sea. It soaks into the soil, or slips across the grass, and finds its way down to the creek at the bottom of the valley.

💡 Every drop that falls here will eventually reach the sea, unless a plant drinks it or the sun lifts it back into the sky first.

1Linville Creek

The farm's own creek

3.0 km · 1.9 mi on this stretch · 3.0 km so far

A small, clear mountain stream that runs through Shipley Farms. The drop rides it west for about 3.0 km (1.9 miles).

💡 Same name, different ocean: this is not the Linville River. That one is on the other side of the Eastern Continental Divide and flows to the Atlantic.

2Brushy Fork

The first junction

3.5 km · 2.2 mi on this stretch · 6.5 km so far

Linville Creek pours into Brushy Fork, a slightly bigger stream. 3.5 km (2.2 miles) later, Brushy Fork meets Cove Creek.

💡 Small streams like these are called headwaters. Most of the water in any big river started in creeks this size.

3Cove Creek

Through the Cove Creek valley

4.5 km · 2.8 mi on this stretch · 11.0 km so far

Cove Creek carries the drop 4.5 km (2.8 miles) down its valley to the Watauga River. The creek gives its name to the community here and to Cove Creek High School, where R.G. Shipley taught agriculture.

💡 From the farm to here is only 11.0 km. Everything after this is the long way to the sea.

4Watauga River

Into Tennessee

96.5 km · 60.0 mi on this stretch · 108 km so far

The Watauga is a real river now. It flows northwest out of North Carolina into Tennessee, through Watauga Lake behind a TVA dam, past Elizabethton, and into Boone Lake, where it joins the South Fork Holston. 96.5 km (60.0 miles).

💡 TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority, built dams along these rivers to control floods and make electricity. Our drop may help turn a turbine.

5South Fork Holston

Past the dams

31.5 km · 19.6 mi on this stretch · 139 km so far

The drop passes Fort Patrick Henry Dam and reaches Kingsport, Tennessee, where the South Fork meets the North Fork. 31.5 km (19.6 miles).

💡 Two forks joining make one bigger river. That is how a river system grows: like the branches of a tree, joined at the trunk.

6Holston River

Down the Great Valley

219 km · 136 mi on this stretch · 358 km so far

The Holston runs southwest through Cherokee Lake to Knoxville. There, at a place called the Forks of the River, it meets the French Broad River, and the two become the Tennessee River. 219 km (136 miles).

💡 Some of the French Broad's water started in the mountains of western North Carolina too, not far from where our drop began.

7Tennessee River

The longest leg

1,033 km · 642 mi on this stretch · 1,391 km so far

The Tennessee is the drop's longest leg: 1,033 km (642 miles). It passes Chattanooga, swings down through northern Alabama past Muscle Shoals, then turns north across Tennessee and Kentucky through a chain of dams and locks to Kentucky Lake and Paducah, Kentucky.

💡 Barges travel this river too. Locks lift and lower boats around each dam, like a staircase made of water.

8Ohio River

A short, wide ride

72.9 km · 45.3 mi on this stretch · 1,464 km so far

At Paducah the Tennessee joins the Ohio, one of the biggest rivers in the country. The drop rides it just 72.9 km (45.3 miles) to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio meets the Mississippi.

💡 Where the two rivers meet, you can sometimes see the line where the clearer Ohio water and the muddier Mississippi water flow side by side.

9Mississippi River

The great river

1,561 km · 970 mi on this stretch · 3,025 km so far

The last and second-longest leg: 1,561 km (970 miles) down the Mississippi, past Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, to where the river splits into channels and spills into the Gulf.

💡 The Mississippi collects water from about two fifths of the lower 48 states. Our drop from Vilas is one of trillions.

10The sea

Journey's end, and a new beginning

3,025 km (1,880 miles) after landing at Shipley Farms, the drop reaches salt water. The sun warms the sea, water evaporates, clouds form, and winds carry some of that moisture back toward the mountains. Someday, a drop may fall on Shipley Farms again.

💡 Nothing on Earth makes new water. The water in our drop has been going around this cycle for billions of years.

Close-up

The first 11 kilometres

From the farm, the drop changes streams three times before it reaches its first river. Each name is a different stream, and each one is bigger than the last.

Jump to: · · ·

Same name, different ocean

Linville Creek is not the Linville River

Linville Creek (our creek)

West of the Eastern Continental Divide. It flows to the Watauga, the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Mississippi, and reaches the Gulf. It is part of the Tennessee River basin.

The Linville River

East of the divide; the edge of its watershed is about 15 kilometres from the farm. It flows through Linville Gorge to the Catawba River and on to the Atlantic Ocean. Two streams with almost the same name, headed for different oceans.

The numbers

Every stretch, measured

#	River or creek	Starts at km	Length, km	Length, mi
1	Linville Creek	0.0	3.0	1.9
2	Brushy Fork	3.0	3.5	2.2
3	Cove Creek	6.5	4.5	2.8
4	Watauga River	11.0	96.5	60.0
5	South Fork Holston	108	31.5	19.6
6	Holston River	139	219	136
7	Tennessee River	358	1,033	642
8	Ohio River	1,391	72.9	45.3
9	Mississippi River	1,464	1,561	970
	Total, Shipley Farms to the sea		3,025	1,880

How we measured it: the U.S. Geological Survey's network-linked data index traced the river channel downstream from the stretch of Linville Creek that runs through Shipley Farms, through 1,375 mapped river segments, to the mouth of the Mississippi near Head of Passes, Louisiana. We added up the length of every segment along the way, and named each stretch from the National Hydrography Dataset. Retrieved 8 November 2026. Distances follow the mapped channel, so they include every bend.

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