It has been absolutely wonderful the past few days, and we feel free again. The boy left on Thursday and we went on our mini-vacation on Friday and returned yesterday. We had an absolute blast and are already planning to head that way again soon. There is a METAL + MOZART show coming up in Bozeman we’d like to see, and it just so happens that my wife knows one of the metal band members through an online community. We also had so much fun at the sapphire mine, we both want to go back and are planning to go back for my birthday weekend.
It may seem odd that we are both relieved that the boy has returned home, but the experience was nothing like we hoped or expected. Pretty much from the get-go, he acted like an entitled brat. That kept us stuck as well, since we weren’t rewarding the behavior with excursions and events. At this point, we’re chalking it up to a lesson learned and will never let it happen again.
Our trip was great! It was a bit of a long drive, but well worth it. The area was new to us so we took several detours to explore the area that ultimately limited our time at the mine. The mine activity was basically washing and sifting through gravel – quite “easy” to do, but technique makes a difference. We found a total weight of 84.9 carats of sapphires, with 17.03 being stones of evaluation quality. Since we ran out of time, we couldn’t have them evaluated that day, but will do so on our next trip.
Of course we also found several bookstores to explore. We even planned our return route to make stops at several more. In addition to the normal haul, I found a title that I had been looking to replace for many years. My original copy had fallen apart long ago and a replacement had been hard. It was priced accordingly, but the bookseller discounted our total purchase when he found out we had just visited their other location in a town an hour away.
All in all, it was an enjoyable and successful trip. We were able to decompress from the previous months’ house-guest and brought back a haul of good books. We still have our work ahead of us to fully right the ship, but we are on the right path.
At least now we are free again…
Song of the day: Finally Free by Dream Theater
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