Hiddenite NC

Guess who got to take a travelling vacation? You got it We Did. And we went mining. Mining for jewels. Our first time was on our honeymoon, we went to Murfreesboro Arkansas hunting diamonds, but alas we found none. This time however we were going for emeralds. Those can be found in North Carolina near a little caution light of a town named Hiddenite. What fun this was. Buckets of dirt are such fun for the inner child in me. We shoveled dirt and rocks into a screen and jiggled joggled the screen in the sluiceway at Emerald Hollow Mine. We found all kinds of rocks-pretty rocks, I mean gems. And yes I had great luck with finding emeralds, a whole hand full as a matter of fact. Maybe not cutting, polishing and setting type but by golly I found ‘em. My beloved found a hand full of garnets and some really large pieces of smokey quartz.
We found lots of different types of rocks and I can’t remember all them but here is a list of the ones I do remember

Emerald-one I left with the lapidary to cut
Garnet
Ruby
Sapphire-two I left with the lapidary to cut
Topaz-both silver and yellow
Amethyst
Citrine
Tourmaline
Aventurine
Quartz of many different colors
Tiger eye-one dime sized but a “nice specimen”
Moonstone
Jasper
Fluorite
Pyrite

Amazing that in this one place they had such a diverse array of rocks. I tell y’all if you are any where near Asheville you need to head on over to the mine. If you don’t have the time to work your bucket there you can get it to go. Really. They will sell you a bag full of dirt and rocks heck you can even get it sent to ya. This is fun for kids too as we miners get dirty and our hands get stained from the red-orange dirt/clay and it looks as if you have been working in a Cheeto factory. I hear there is an opal mine in Oregon. hummm