A Report

Recently Levon has become deeply interested in rocks, specifically gemstones. He's done research. And yes, seven year olds can do research. He's been begging his mother to take him to one of the local "rock mining" attractions and we decided that today was the day. 
Before we went to the actual mining location, we stopped off at a state park dedicated to rocks. The Rock Museum. But you know, not the kind with the Rolling Stones or the Beatles in it. 

We spent about half an hour there and I don't think I learned a great deal about rocks although I could have if I'd read everything and studied the exhibits more closely. However, Levon was about to die to do some actual mining and also, that carpeting you see had to have been newly installed and the smell of it made my eyes burn. 
I think my favorite part of that museum was learning about owls from a park ranger named Susan Jones who was set up at a table by the entrance with two taxidermied owls and other interesting reading material. I kept thinking that "Susan Jones" would be a great alias but this woman did indeed look like a Susan Jones if I ever saw one and I envied her handsome Park Ranger hat. 
Here's a picture of August sitting in one of the cool State Park chairs. 

Do you see what's on the chair right by his neck? 

No one was harmed in the making of this picture. 

After the museum we went to a tiny bend in the road called "Little Switzerland" where we had our lunch. It was 100% tourists but the food was surprisingly good. Levon acted like he was dying as the mining had been put off once again but he recovered nicely as soon as the bill was paid and we headed up to Emerald Village, the mining operation we had settled on. Although I am sure that Levon had imagined a scenario where we all had pickaxes and a miner's helmet, we of the twenty-first century are not up to such shenanigans and so we bought a giant bucket of dirt and gravel and rocks and were directed to two flumes where there where box screens in which to shovel the contents of the bucket into in order to wash out the grit and hunt for the gems. 

We all found so many possibly priceless jewels in the rough. The best part was afterwards when one of the employees went through our findings and told us what they were. He was so patient and took his time and showed us some of the hidden gems in the rocks. He shined a black light on one rock and showed us all the rubies embedded in it. Tiny rubies, but rubies all the same. 
Boppy insisted that Jessie and I pick out one of our finds to get cut and polished to use in a necklace. We'll get the stones in a few months and can go from there with a setting. 

Levon declared it the best day in his life. And truly, it was a pretty cool day. The place really had been a mine and before we left, we walked down to where the entrance of the mine had been blasted so many years before. It was unspeakably huge. 

The pictures does not do it justice. 

And now, of course, we are rich in potential fortunes.

Vergil was finally able to join us. He's been helping his brother-in-law and step-dad do work on their property to get things back to rights after Helene. Everywhere we go we so much construction going on to repair and restore roads and railroad tracks and buildings, even after all this time. But I am incredibly impressed at the progress that's been made. This is a project that will be going on for a long, long time. 

We had a delicious grouper supper with green beans and cornbread and after the kiddos got settled off to sleep, the grown-ups got in the hot tub and eased our older bones. Some far older than others.

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And that was yesterday. 
Today we're just hanging about so far, eating breakfast(s) and doing laundry and trying to decide what to do with the day. Vergil and the boys did some crawfish hunting in the creek but found none. 
The weather has been pretty good. We've gotten some rain but it comes and it goes, never lasting very long. 

Here are a few random pictures. 

Nothing like a good Thai corndog. 

Boppy teaching the boys to plays Spades. 

A boy in a creek. 

Pictures Mr. Moon took from the car window on our drive back from Emerald Village. He was not driving. 
These roads scare me to death but Jessie takes them with ease now. Although the mountains and their views are incredibly beautiful and powerful, too, I am not at my most comfortable here. I am so used to flat and mostly interrupted stretches of land and sometimes here I feel closed in. I know that many people, however, don't feel at home anywhere else than here in this green, steep, majestic landscape. 

Love...Ms. Moon