On vocals, at least.
About a month or so ago, Mickey and I went to a wedding. The wedding was fantastic, the bride looked lovely and the groom was very bouncy. We drank, we danced, we took lots of pictures with disposable cameras.
But, my favorite part, and the part I was most looking forward to, didn't happen til the next day.
After breakfast at a place that reminded me of eating in a grandmothers kitchen in the 1950's (best Eggs Benedict, ever, btw) we drove a little further down the road and went gem mining.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved gem mining. I was so excited (and somewhat nervous) to share one of my favorite things in the world with Mickey. Excited because, you know, rocks are awesome. Nervous because, you know, if you don't like rocks, gem mining is boring as hell.
But, before you get bored reading about rocks, here are some pictures of our loot:
And seriously? That's not even a quarter of the awesomeness.
Apparently, gem mining isn't as common as I thought. So here's how it goes.
You buy a big bucket of dirt. The super-passionate gem-mining dood gives you a wooden box with a screen for a bottom and a spade-shovel-thingie. Then he leads to to this trough of running water that is normally a couple different levels.
You sit on an uncomfortable wooden bench and drop a spade-full of dirt into your wooden-screen box. Then you shake it about and gently lower it into the water, letting it wash away all the dirt. Then you sift through what is left and, hopefully, find real treasure.
And we totally did. We found quartz and tiger's eye and flourite and topaz and amethyst and some gorgeous jasper. But even better than that, we found rubies, sapphires and emeralds. This whole glass is filled with them, in fact:
Looks just like plain boring rocks, don't they? But once polished and cut, they are gorgeous. We just haven't made it that far yet.
Rubies were probably the most fun for us to find because they sound different than all the other rocks. They are heavier than other gems, so when the water pushes them down the trough, they give off a deeper sound. We got a few of our rubies from the couple who was mining upstream from us. Shhh.
We killed almost two hours gem-mining. I am happy to report that Mickey enjoyed himself and now I have a lot more awesome to add to my rock collection.
Don't judge. Rocks are awesome.
