Herkimer, NY
Herkimer, NY - small town, abundant antique shops, thrift shops, derelict buildings with chalkware saints in the window, verandas with permanent garage sales inviting you to knock and enquire about the many treasures displayed within.
But that's not why we're here. We're here to mine the fabulous Herkimer Diamonds, which somehow or another I stumbled across on the internet and have obsessed me ever since. And so we base ourselves at the motel in Herkimer and drive out to the mines. I'm excited, far more so than my daughter and somehow she's caught my enthusiasm and is excited as well. Her mother is a little more pragmatic.
We arrive, tour the museum, view the incredible displays of giant crystals that have been found there, for sale from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, there to whet your appetite, then pick up our hammers and head into the quarries. They give you a tiny plastic bag to hold your finds in, and I look at the clerk and suggest that perhaps it's not going to be big enough and he looks at me and I understand that this is foreshadowing....
Now we begin, it's straightforward enough, you bash rocks and break them and find, occasionally, tiny crystals within. Which we do for an hour or two, but the crystals are too tiny, and while the daughters mother is encouraging us to give up both my daughter and I are obsessed.
In the cliff face there are numerous exposed cavities, vugs that have been opened and emptied, looking within you can imagine they once contained hundreds, maybe thousands of giant crystals. They inspire you, but the hammers we have are too small, we can't break open the cliff and so try our luck digging in the eroded bedrock, soil, easy to break rock. We find some, small - all well under 1 cm, but perfect, and it's an 8 hour day passed relaxing and bashing stones.
Now I'm not disappointed, it was good but I know I should have packed better and I could have made it great.
If you're going to try it here are a few recommendations to maximize your trip: (the voice of rueful experience...)
BRING: sledgehammers, wedges, chisels, buckets (for water - to rinse your finds), screens (to search through the dirt), dynamite (OK, probably they won't let you but it would sure help). Work the base of the cliff, you'll only find tiny ones in the rocks that are broken lying about the quarry. Or simply move the rocks and excavate into the bedrock, this will assure you of some minor findings and you might get lucky and break into a vug from above.
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- Category: Places
SOLD! 1 Antique Humpbacked Trunk
Packed 2 loads to the new place, had 1 visit re: The Haunted Table - She brought her son, probably she was wary after reading about the Antique Humpbacked Trunk I had for sale (fits 1 body), hummed and hawed, not certain, the trunk sold later in the day, added to it a Medalta 3 Gallon Crock and the boys Brass bed, because at $25.00 if it hadn't sold it wasn't going to and better that it find a good home on it's own than have me move it.
Still there is loads to do.
Transcribed 8 pages of notes from the vacation, 6 to go ... (did I take a vacation? Why am I not relaxed..?), Ate (and at 7-11 because there is no food in the fridge, no inclination to buy any, tomorrow I'll be a little smarter and go for Indian Buffet...), have begun to work on diminishing the emails in my inbox, many can be simply deleted but painfully they have to be read first.
And it's painful. I'm on vacation. Still, slowly I'm getting there...
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- Category: Miscellany
For Sale: 1 Antique Mineral Water Bottle
Price: $10.00Provenance: I acquired this fine empty bottle whilst kayaking the northwest passage. I was searching for Polar Bears to wrestle, this being a hobby of mine (and far more manly than just slaying them), when after 1 particularly long session with a Giant Polar bear and her 3 cubs I retired to my kayak for a drink.
Now before you get all liberal and indignant let me remind you that it's volunteer rangers like me that keep the North safe from the gathering hordes of Polar Bears that lurk pretty much everywhere north of Edmonton. Safe so tourists like you can go on your little luxury cruises and junkets.
Now I was thirsty and so I went back to my Kayak for a drink
And as luck would have it my (formerly) trusty Inuit guide "Nanook" had already drunk all my water.
"Water, Water everywhere, yet not a drop to drink..."
You should never drink seawater, in case you didn't know.
Anyways, looking around forlornly for a drink or a vending machine (while Mama bear and her cubs are getting away across the pack ice), when what should I spot but this bottle poking out of a snowdrift.
There's crap like this everywhere up there, but I went to check it out just in case.
No water. But there was a note in the bottle, kind of all faded and brittle and all curled up.
It read something like this (if I can remember).
"We, the men of the Erebus and Terror on this day .... in the year of our lord 1847 have .... eaten the cabinboy .... being pursued by giant lizards .... entering into the hollow earth ..... look for signs near...."
There was more, lots more with maps and directions and excerpts from journals and strange drawings and things, but I thought the bottle was coolest and so took it and left the rest. It wasn't littering, because I had already found it there.
Anyways, if you like it you can have it for a mere $10.00. The bottle, that is, the rest of it is still up there. If you're curious I'll draw you a map, but that will cost you another $5.00.
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- Category: For Sale
7:00 AM and it's Grey Outside
7:00 AM this morning, 5 1/2 hours sleep and I'm strangely refreshed. The tightness in the chest is slowly vanishing, I remind myself with every cigarette that I have to quit. And I remind myself that I have to eat - when did I eat last? Almost 40 hours ago at the airport; there's much to do and it's one step after another...
There is the diminishing of possessions - I have done this, long long ago, strangely satisfying, as if a weight were being lifted from my shoulders. I've listed ads for an antique humpbacked trunk, the giant herb chest (good only for ornament and socks, 300 lbs of solid teak, if unsold this will be it's final move, it must sell as well...), Indian Ships lantern, now to await the interested enquiries ....
The stereo, listed and I received a response identifying the speakers as being cheap knock offs and so I unlisted, took to the Goodwill where upon browsing I found another pair of antique candlesticks, large, about 200 years old, $6.00 the pair and in immaculate condition and so I buy them, there is as well an old gramaphone, 1911, not working, and old habits die hard and so I buy this as well, alternately congratulating and cursing myself all the way home , reassuring myself that it was a "good deal" and yet remembering that I'm downsizing and that as I take it with me, it's only for a while....
8:04, Still rush hour, time to drink my coffee, smoke some more of the duty free (and I must quit, I remind myself), start packing the car and making trips with the infinite small boxes of rubbish, many, many more things to go, books, shelves.
I apologize for the quality of the blogging, it is sliding, has slid, but things have gotten busy and busier and it will be some several weeks before they're back to normal. Bear with me.
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- Category: Miscellany
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