We finally had a day off as a family. Also I needed to get my car back from it's recent trip to the shop for warranty work. So since we were to be in Helena anyways we visited a place we saw on TV's " Cash and Treasure" We went to the Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine in Helena, MT. Now I do have to say this was pretty cool all around. almost felt like we in an episode of Amazing Race and getting there was part of the fun. Now Montana road signs are few and far between, unless they are Clark Fork signs. But fortunately we found the location with out to much to do. Chad and I felt rather accomplished on not getting our family lost.First we had to visit the outhouse. Cole and Ella's first outhouse. Cole held his nose and refused to go stating he did not have to. he said " mama i can only hold my nose for so long it is stinky in here." Now Ella on the other hand was not offended at all by the smells. In fact while we where there for 2 1/2 hours she made 4 visits.
We then bought our bag of rocks to sift through and received a demonstration by one of the "rock gods". He told us what to look for and how to dip and shake the screen in the bathtub of water.
Then we used the foam piece in the frame to turn over. We are sifting thru rocks and Chad pulls out this nice size blue sapphire and says "is this one?" Sure enough beginners luck. Well we did not find anything else except some Hematite and quartz till about 20 mins before we were just going to pack up and go. Mommy found a sparkling garnet. Both rough gems are between 1.5 - 2 carats. We packed our bag of rocks (still had a large bag but no longer had interested children) and headed toward the town part of Helena to pick up my van.
It was a good day.
