Hot Springs, part II

Here is the view from our balcony, overlooking Lake Hamilton. Unfortunately, we didn't enjoy the balcony much because we were worried about one of the boys going over the side.
On Tuesday morning we toured the Mountain Valley Water Museum, which was moderately interesting. It's kind of hard to make water exciting, but they did have some neat historical photographs and an art exhibit that included sculptures made from broken water bottles.

Then we headed out to Coleman's Crystal Mines. We were going to go a real diamond mine, but it was a couple hours away and we didn't think the boys would be up for more driving. Besides, diamonds have been found at the crystal mine too, so we gave it a shot... here is a view of the mine. At the bottom of this quarry, which goes about 120 feet deep, there are bulldozers constantly filling up dump trucks, which then come up to the top and leave "trailings", dirt you can sort through at your leisure for $20 a head.

On that day, there were rather large veins of crystal to be had. Some of the crystals were as big as bowling balls and some were the size of marbles. Here, Jack shows off a 'diamond' that he found for me. Heck, maybe it is a real diamond, how would I know?
Jason got into the action too. He took his digging quite seriously and just would not give up this little shovel.

It was pretty hot and we didn't last more than an hour or so at the mine, as there was absolutely nowhere to escape the sun beating down on us. The mine was a neat experience and we got a nice sack of assorted rocks, crystals, quartz ... and maybe even a diamond!

On Wednesday we took a river boat cruise on Lake Hamilton. Hot Springs has the "Duck" rides that go on land and water but we saw internet reviews that said you spend most of the time on land. Well, we can do that on our own, so we decided on the Belle of Hot Springs river boat for a 75 minute lunchtime cruise.
Although the boys had talked about going on the boat for days already, I think actually being on it was less fun than watching from our balcony. They weren't so interested in seeing all the mansions lining the lakefront or hearing about the people who live in them. However, when I asked Jack if we should move into one of them, he said no, those are too big for us. My budding economist! My heart swelled with pride.

Jack wearing the hat that we won at the resort's bingo game.