Monday June 8th

Today we went to Herkimer diamond mine!! What a fantastic day. Here are Connor's thoughts. I'm just too tired to type!
Hello everyone. It is Connor! Today I had to wake up at 4:30 am. and we had to get in the car at five. The car ride was 2 hours and 52 minutes long. What a bummer, being in a car for three hours with mom! She made me listen to Chinese Cds the whole time. It was so boring!!! Luckily, I fell asleep for half of the ride. When we got to Herkimer, I went upstairs to the museum. They had a real dinosaur skull! After the talk about what to do, and how to do it, we went into the mine. It was not underground, but was all rock and open. I got a nasty cut from the rocks on my knee. Anyway, I spent an hour of fun, smashing rocks and finding beautiful Herkimer diamonds. Then we when sluicing. I got a partner and a bag of soil, then put it in a cage-like thing. After that, I put the cage-like-thing in the running water, and moved it around. Out came beautiful gems, after the soil washed away.
Well, after that, I got snacks. We then looked at how jewelers smoothed out stones with grinding machines. There were two machines, and they did different jobs. Two of them smoothed out stones and one of them makes the faces of the diamonds really clear. Then we went to the appraising table. I found some drusey (spelling ?) that they told me is worth eight dollars, and a few perfect little diamonds.
Then my mom and I learned about Igneous, Metamorphic, and Sedimentary rocks. After lunch, we decided to mine the rest of the day. I found tons of diamonds. I could sell them all for $100+ dollars. That was my trip at Herkimer Diamond mine!