Getting Dirty

Destination: Hiddenite Gems Emerald Hollow Mine
Total Miles: 290 miles
Cost: $70

For months now, I have been hearing the same refrain almost any time I mention "Field Trip."

"Are we going to go to that mine to dig?"

You would think that after TWO YEARS (and yes, it's been 2 years), they would forget that I promised to take them back to a random mine.

But not my LPs. True to form, they retain promises like elephants (or camels...you know the analogy). And this one was apparently more important than some of the others.

This trip started out a little early (for me, this means getting up before 8 a.m.). We were on the road around 8ish, and after a quick stop at Chick-fil-A for breakfast, we were off on a grand adventure. For starters, I had not told them where we would be going for the day. All I said was that it was approximately 3 hours away...the fact that they inferred from this information that we were going to Charleston was out of my control. Once we started passing signs on I-85 for Charlotte, they started thinking differently.

The last time we trekked to the mine, we returned home, clutching our baggies of precious stones, only to hear Mom telling us we should have worn different clothes. Which was true. So, not only did we all wear grubby clothes, the LPs also took a change of clothes.

This particular "mine" (used in a very, very loose sense of the word) has few options listed on their website regarding how to obtain precious stones. The option I went for (this time) was "creeking."

What creeking entails is (for a fee of $10/person plus a couple extra bucks for a pan and shovel) walking up and down (and in and out) a small creek (which has been "salted" or had certain ore placed in it to make it appear rich), digging up the dirt and rocks, placing this dirt into a pan, and sluicing.

Dirty. Wet. And...with my 3 adventurous Little People in tow...a ton of fun.

I estimate our creeking time to be between an hour and a half and two hours. I'm not sure who had more fun: the LPs wading and digging, or me watching them.







Charles, in particular, found several excellent specimens by just walking up and down the creek. Chenie and Thomas had more luck in digging and sluicing.

With our baggies half full, we headed back to Mr. Darcy for a quick picnic lunch.



Then came the dirtiest, wettest part of all: the sluiceway.

We were each given a complimentary 2-3 gallon bucket full of Carolina-red-dirt. Chenie sat next to me and promptly shoveled a bunch into my lap. The point was to shovel out a few scoops into our pans and sluice out the dirt. What would (hopefully) be left was an assortment of stones/minerals.

This process took almost another 2 hours. But by the end, everyone had a baggie full of beautiful stones.

I would HIGHLY recommend the mining process to anyone with children between 5-18 years old. There is something intrinsically fascinating about digging up dirt, sluicing it, and finding colorful rocks. Any kid with an imagination will be intrigued. It is also a useful teaching tool...science lesson (how were these formed, explaining the difference of a real mine versus a salted mine, etc), math lesson (add, subtract, calculate pricing of precious stones), history lesson (how early miners worked, important mining facts, etc), even reading lesson (find books on mining, types of rocks, fictional stories about miners, etc).

After doing some basic research, I felt that this mine (check it out here) had very reasonable prices and options. I like to Google things to do in and around various places. I also check out tripadvisor and read reviews (some of which, I take worth a grain of salt). Check it and let me know your opinion!

When we were heading home, I asked the Little People what was their favorite part of the trip. To my astonishment it wasn't eating Chick-fil-A for breakfast or QT for supper; it wasn't creeking or sluicing. They all 3 agreed, their favorite part was "Getting dirty."

:)