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The Garden Party

Goin' rock hunting

15 years ago

I've been watching those "Cash and Treasures" shows for years, always on the lookout for places to find gemstones. Heck, who cares if they're even gems -- I want to find pretty rocks. I thought it would make such a perfect girls only trip, but all my "girls" have wimped out on me. I think their excuses are feeble -- baby due in June, live on the other side of the country, need to work -- that sort of weak stuff, so DH and I are heading out next month to North Carolina and northern Georgia to hit some of the spots mentioned on the TV shows. We can't leave the critters here for more than a few days, so it will be a quick trip.

When the grandsons are a couple of years older, I plan to take them to the diamond mine in Arkansas -- that's on the way to taking them home to Texas after they visit us in Illinois. At 5 and 6 I'm not too sure how thrilled they would be to do that now.

Rubies, sapphires, aquamarines, emeralds and just plain pretty rocks, here I come. Have any of you done something like this? Any suggestions? I'd prefer not to kill myself in the name of rock hunting.

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Comments (4)

Janis_G
15 years ago
I've taken the Yankee cousins to some of the places over in the mountains.
It was fun.
We found some rubies etc. Just small ones.

Kids love to do this.
The older ones anyway.
ronbre
15 years ago
i just got this great pebble mosaic book, and there are such beautiful things in there i would love to make some..i'd like to do a walkway..
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norar_il
Original Author
15 years ago
Jan remember that baby we found out was on the way when we were on a GP get together? He'll be 5 in June.

Where did you go for gem hunting? Can you tell me some stuff you ran into?

Making a mosiac out of found rocks sounds like a wonderful idea! Thanks for that suggestion.
Janis_G
15 years ago
Nora, you can find all kinds of places in the Sherpa guide.
Sheffields is the one that is shown on the Travel Channel.
We went to Dahlonega it has some places and it's a nice
little mountain town. Gold was discovered there and they
have a little museum on the town square.. We took the cousins to another place
that a friend told us about but I can't remember the name.
I've never been to Sheffields

Most of the mines have people who go in and bring out
buckets of dirt for you. They have places for you to sit
and look through the dirt.

We found some Rubies and Garnets.
If you've never done this before you'll have fun.
Some folks are really into it and have the rock tumblers and everything.

There is a world class museum ( The Weinman Rock and
Mineral Museum) just south of here if you are interested in
that sort of thing. It is wonderful.
Google it and some of the places in North Georgia and in
and around Franklin NC.

I can't believe it has been so long since we were in
Kentucky. What a trip that turned out to be. It was the
first time I had met anyone from the GP in person. It was such fun.

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