Spent a day at The Smithsonian the week I was in the National Spelling Bee, and it does require several days to fully enjoy.
As for "rocks," coming from flat Florida where pretty ones do not proliferate, it was wonderful when we went to live in Rapid City, South Dakota!
With the boys 6 and 7, we went exploring often, taking picnic lunches or things to grill in parks.
Steve and Kevin were trained to help Mom gather "pretty ones" - and there were LOTS!! Going from the sagging trunk of the car to the back porch, my collection grew.
When we were transferred to Fairbanks, Alaska and the movers were unloading the van, one staggered down the ramp exclaiming,"Whadda ya have in here, lady - rocks?"
The boys and I doubled over with laughter, because that was exactly the content..:))
In later years, my husband was a retail store manager, and then a jewelry store manager and certified gemologist.
While I would have been able to have any precious gem ring I wanted at cost, I never desired one - still only have a simple wedding band.
More precious to me was Mother's Day in 1962 when in South Dakota we came upon an abandoned rose quartz mine. My two little guys gleefully loaded in the trunk some spectacular ones of every size.
I still have one of those in my living room, a few in flower beds, and small ones in scattered displays.
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We went from there to preserved historic Fort Laramie, and in the Gift Shop there, they spent their precious savings on a bracelet for me with (inexpensive) stones set in.
We learned there why Custer is a dirty word - - not a hero.
"Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Black Hills Expedition of 1874 changed everything. It sparked the last great gold rush in the continental U.S., giving birth to Deadwood but also violating the Fort Laramie Treaty with the Sioux. Their rage was unleashed on Custer and his Seventh Cavalry just two years later at the Little Big Horn."
And that was deserved - Custer had negotiated the treaty with the Indians, passed by Congress, "promising" the Indians the settlers in South Dakota would not expand into the Indians' territory, if the fort was left in peace.
He violated that , and the gold rush decimated thetr tribes all over the West.
The only rock I deeply appreciate and desire is this one - -
