While I was planning our first few weeks of travel, I was trying to find a good halfway point to stop between Niagara Falls and Vermont.  And low and behold, I found this gem of a place!  I mean, really.  It is a cut above the rest.  The choice was clear.  We would be stopping at Herkimer Diamond Mines.

Ok, they’re not REALLY diamonds… they’re actually Quartz Crystal.  But I was so excited to learn that you could go into the mines and find the beauties yourselves!  When I told Caydence, she was beyond excited.  Ever since she was very little, the child has always been fascinated by rocks, stones, and gems.  She has collected them and always wants more!  Needless to say, we’d been looking forward to this for months.

We arrived at the Herkimer Diamond KOA to find that it is in fact a resort with it’s own restaurant and attractions (the mines).  I had previously thought that the mines were a separate entity.  But they are, in fact, a part of this KOA.  We instantly fell in love with our site.

Although they had run out of full hook up sites (busy Columbus day weekend), we had water and electric and our site had a lovely back yard over looking a mountain and a creek.  We were a little road weary, so we decided to try out their restaurant that first night before the crowds came in for the weekend.  It had a diverse menu with affordable pizza to extravagant (and more pricey) entrees.  We opted for the pizza.  We were dining with children after all!  And they give everyone a sharpie and ask you to sign the wall, which the kids loved!  The pizza was great and we met the owners while at the restaurant.

They were very kind and welcoming.  You can tell they have a passion for the mines.  The campground has much to offer including a pool and some themed cabins which including a tree house and an astronomy cabin complete with telescope.  We would highly recommend this KOA resort to anyone traveling through New York.

The next day after we arrived it was off to the mines!  They have a large store/museum that we walked through before going into the mines.  Caydence could have spent the whole day there if we had let her.  We watched an instructional video with tips for mining, grabbed some hammers and a chisel, and we went to work.  The first hour and half consisted of Zac mining with the two big kids while I walked Phoenix back and forth from the bathroom three times.

I dare say that a child under the age of five is probably too young to really enjoy the mining.  When he wasn’t asking to go to the bathroom, he would stay entertained for a few minutes at a time playing in the dirt.  But after the my third trip back from the bathroom, I handed him off to Zac to take back to the RV so that I could do some mining, too.  Brody decided he was done for the day too.  So then it was girl time in the mines.  And my girl worked tirelessly.  She was in the mines for a total of 3.5 hours and she never complained once and just kept hammering away at the rocks and the mine walls.  She and I found some smaller pieces that were really nicely shaped and one large, crude diamond.  We decided that was good enough to call it a day.

The next day was rainy and wet so we had a snuggle up with some good movies type of a day.  Over all, a good time was had by all at the Herkimer Diamond Mines.  I will leave you with a picture of Brody trying to feed a squirrel that was at our site.  He was so excited that it touched his hand.  He wanted to make it our pet.  Sorry Brody, no.