You Mine 'Em, You Keep 'Em

Ever since Nathan heard about a diamond mine in Arkansas that is open to the public, he's had an itch to try such an attraction. I read in a NC guidebook that they had some public mines in Western NC, and Nathan selected the Hiddenite Emerald Mine as his venue for realizing that dream of his.

We went today, and I'll have to say, what was most memorable honestly were the LINES.  By the time we found a parking spot, ate some sandwiches and got the kids organized, got through the admissions line and then the line for the tool rental, three hours had passed.  Ridiculous!  I hear it's a lot slower on weekdays, and I bet Memorial Day weekend didn't help our cause any, either.  The boys were amazingly well-behaved.  David is normally quite an explorer, but he was very good about staying right with us through long, hot, boring lines.  Daniel was a bit fussy b/c he was tired, but he too was remarkably patient with everything.

Anyway, we chose to go "Creeking" to look for our gems.  David didn't want to go barefoot, and we didn't want him wading in the water in his shoes and socks.  We actually had brought his rainboots with us, but didn't see anyone else wearing water-type shoes so we left them in the car.  The result was he stood barefoot on a rock in the middle of the creek, safely clear of the water, for several minutes.  Then he lost his balance and stepped in the water.  Oh the commotion!  I don't know if he didn't like the feel of the creek bottom, or if the water was too cold, or both, but he was one unhappy boy.  After that he kind of huddled on a rock on the bank of the creek and just watched us.  Pretty soon he asked to put his shoes and socks back on and just stayed clear of the water.  Eventually he decided throwing rocks into the water was fun, but we had to be careful about where he threw them because our little stretch of creek was absolutely packed with "creekers".  Right at the end we managed to coax him to shovel some mud into the screen and rinse the rocks off in the water once or twice.  Nathan was a little disappointed that David didn't get more excited and involved; Nathan sure had fun!

We found a few handsful of pretty and promising stones, but they turned out to be stuff that I don't recognize names for, and they aren't very valuable.  Oh well!  We came away with the very great treasure of memories of time spent together as a family.