Having watched Cash And Treasures on the Travel Channel, both my wife and I have wanted to try some of those trips. In March, we are driving down to Virginia where I am going to be running a marathon. But I noticed that North Carolina was the next state down. And I was pretty sure that one of the Cash And Treasures shows had taken place in NC. I search and sure enough, they had been hunting emeralds in Hiddenite, NC. That was less than a 6 hour drive away. Hmmm. And the emerald hunting looked like fun. And coincidently, the Cash And Treasures episode with the emerald hunting was just on during a New Years marathon of the show. So I talked to my wife, and she is all excited. Well, me too. We are planning on taking a couple day drive down to the marathon when I am hopefully going to qualify for the Boston Marathon by running a 3:30 race. We will staying over night there, and then Monday drive down towards Hiddenite. We will stay overnight there, and then on Tuesday actually do the emerald hunting. My legs should be feeling a little bit better by Tuesday. I am sure they will still be a little sore though. If we have fun the first day, maybe we will stay and do a second day before driving back up north.
There was another place down in Georgia with amethyst hunting, but my wife seemed to be happy with just doing the emeralds. And on the show, they seemed to be finding more than just emeralds. Some of the other stones listed on the places website are aquamarine, sapphire, garnet, topaz, amethyst, citrine, rutile, tourmaline and hiddenite.
I am planning on getting the combo permit which will allow us to do digging, creeking and sluicing. I am a strong guy, so the digging wont be that hard. But then the creeking could be fun too.

Posted by RJ in Travel on January 4th, 2008 |