In my daughter's fourth year she started to become interested in rocks. Very interested.
Mrs. Bear and I took this to be simple curiosity at first, but it wasn't so.
I suggested we find a museum with a large crystal exhibit and Mrs. Bear agreed. However, once she started poking around she found that NC is a gemstone dense state. She noted that there were several public mines in the state. So we picked a little one that was nearby and headed out.
My girl was enraptured. Generally, I'm lucky to get 10-15 minutes of good focus from her. That first day of sluicing the rocks... she was intent on the task for a full three hours. Amazing.
I became interested in how to make money on the stones. Heh.
To make a long story short, we hit a few public mines near to the house but generally just for my girl. Reading up in the archives here it became clear that #1 most public mines are "enriched" (operators introduce outside stone of little value to the dirt) and #2 that it is a lot like a lottery. By "lottery" I mean that it is highly unlikely that you'll find anything of real value (otherwise the mine wouldn't be public).
Still, my girl loves it and it got me interested in lapidary.
Next up, my first grinder.
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