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Published: June 24th 2009
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Herkimer Diamond Mine Gift Shop and Office
The Herkimer Diamond Mine Gift Shop and Office. Monday, June 22 (Herkimer KOA): Today we are going to the diamond mine, but since we haven’t been jogging as often as we should, we decided to run first. The KOA office had told us about a nice trail along the Erie Canal in Herkimer, so after our morning coffee, off we went. The trail/path was almost all paved, very scenic, and about 2 miles one way. After the refreshing four mile loop, we returned to shower, then headed to the mine. We paid our $9.00 each admission, which included a wrist band, a small sledge hammer, and a specimen bag. After hearing an introductory talk instead of the usual video, along with another couple and about 50 elementary school kids, we headed to mine #3. Mine #1 looked closed down, but #3 had just opened June 1st. I’m using the term mine a bit loosely, since it’s actually just an area where they removed the top soil and jack hammered out a ledge to work on. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy work, but it turned out to be quite grueling … and fruitless! We did note several other people finding stones, some of them pretty decent sized,
Herkimer Diamond Mines Entrance
Entrance to the Herkimer Diamond Mines. but neither Manoli or I found anything. To be honest, Manoli gave up after about an hour and a half, but I spent over 3 hours or myself. We ate hot dogs and fries for lunch at the café on the premises… oh, and I slurped down a rather large, small soft-serve ice cream cone. Can you say brain freeze? When I finally surrendered about 3pm or so, we chilled out in the Kabin for a while. I’ll provide some advice on mining here. I’m sure it can be fun and productive, but be prepared to work hard. You might want to bring gloves (I have a nice blister!), a real sledgehammer (the long handle very heavy type), and plenty of fluids. I did buy a chisel for $14.00, but it didn’t seem to help much, except where there were cracks. For dinner, we headed into Herkimer to check out the much-lauded “Gems Along The Mohawk” that the advertisement said had over 70 shops and at least one nice restaurant. It took us a while to find it, since we were expecting a fairly large shopping mall and it turned out to be one not-so-large building with a large gift
Mine #2 sign at Herkimer Diamond Mines
Mine #2 sign at Herkimer Diamond Mines shop and a restaurant that was nice looking and probably had good food, but the cheapest item on the menu was $14.95 and the dishes didn’t sound that interesting. Instead, after looking around town, we ended up eating at Taco Bell. Tomorrow we leave for Niagara Falls, where we are registered to run in the “Run Thru The Mist 5K” on Goat Island Wednesday evening. Since the trip is only 240 miles, we may stop at a place or two along the way. Oh, and if this doesn’t show up online soon, it’s because the WiFi connection here is abysmal, when it works at all!
Footnote: Arrived at Niagara Falls KOA and finally have a good WiFi connection, so sending this here.
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tanyason
non-member comment
mining
sorry ya'll didn't have any luck at the mine. As for the race, hope ya'll do well! I ran 3 miles in 23:37 yesterday! felt like throwing up during the last half mile, but kept going and then felt awesome after!! :o) Love you guys!