First stop, Hiddenite Gems in North Carolina.
We had a great time sluicing! They fill the buckets with "ore" taken from the Emerald Hollow Mine. Treasures are really fun to find, and the kids took it quite seriously! :) Kavan liked finding the "big" rocks. Karlee liked finding the "crystals." And Kyler and Kenzie caught on that "smaller, but weighty rocks" were, most often, quite precious.
Headed down to the creek!
Sluicing in the creek!
Layne and the kids could spend hours sluicing! (And I could spend hours in their, tiny but fun, gem and jewelry store.) Such a fun day, topped off with showers that ran orange because of all the dust and dirt we had accumulated at the mine! Oh, and to really top off the day we were in walking distance of this new Italian restaurant - delicious - brick oven pizza, yummy lasagna, mmmmm! ...And Dairy Queen just happened to be a hop, skip and jump away! :)
