The Hidden Gem

My daughter and I went gem-mining this weekend in Hiddenite, NC for what turned out to be another crazy/wonderful mother-daughter adventure! We started out just fine - checked the weather first and were happy to read on Weather.com that there was only a 5% chance of an isolated thunderstorm so we put down the top on her Jeep and took off. We talked of really serious life-changing things, and we also laughed and sang at the top of our lungs on the way up there. For the first hour and a half anyway. Then it happened. The black cloud...the 5% chance. We noticed that the sky was getting a little cloudy and the temp seemed to drop a bit but since we were in a higher elevation, we really didn't pay that much attention to it. Besides that, we just had too much to talk about (like the man in the pick-up one lane over who was smoking a cheroot - not a cigar, mind you but an actual cheroot - arm hanging out the window, leering like an overly dramatic dastardly villain from a vaudeville movie and furiously pumping his eyebrows up and down at me each time I glanced his way). But back to my story. So we're going along about 75, and we notice that there were a few raindrops or else a very sheer mist on the windshield. Of course, we didn't feel anything on our skin because we were going so fast so the ‘moisture’ was no big deal. If Mama's not wet, it isn't raining, right? We just kind of looked at each other and after a few "I don't know, what do you think - should we pull over and put the top up?" moments we decided that we'd drive on a bit to see what happens. We were having a lovely drive and had no intentions of letting a little mist take the wind out of our hair (although when I saw myself later I really should have insisted having the top up and the A/C on the whole way - but that's a story best not described LOL). We drove on for about five minutes and then it happened. The sky turned black as night at the precise moment quarter-sized raindrops started falling with intense regularity. We started to feel the cool rain on our bare arms. That was it for me....time to put the top up! We were very lucky that there was an exit about a half mile ahead so she got off and pulled under a gas station overhang while we (OK, she) put the top up. I had one of those seemingly simple moments when an easy decision seems to echo my life at the moment: do we turn around and go back home? We're about halfway between home and our destination. It was tempting to slip back into old habits and say 'let's just go back where it's safe' but I didn't...it was one of those moments of clarity: I'm halfway between the past and the future...which will I choose? I say let's take a chance and just push on so we get back on the road and the gullywasher starts full force! Every car that didn't pull over on the side of the road was going about 30 miles an hour with hazards flashing. The road had almost two inches of rain on it and people were stupidly slamming on their brakes for no apparent reason. Needless to say, it was a very tense hour in the storm from h-e-double-hockey-sticks. Thunder that rattled the seats in the Jeep, lightning that illuminated what would have been white-out conditions had it been snow - this was a really bad storm, folks, and my daughter who was terrified to drive for such a long time handled the weather like a pro. Other than reminding me one time in an almost polite way that she was the driver and not me (as in, 'Will you please shut up, Mom, I'm trying to drive in a freakin' storm!’) she was fantastic.

The sun finally came out and we made it to the gem mine, only an hour later than we were supposed to arrive. This place was red. There was red clay, red dirt, red dust everywhere - on the trees, the cars, the buildings, ...the people walking around were streaked with red dirt. After we parked, which was an adventure in itself as there was nothing more than a gutted road with red-dusted gravel weaving in and out of the woods with occasional places to squeeze in a car or truck here and there. It was really rustic but then again, a gem mine should be, right? We hopped out of the Jeep and walked down a big hill to a little shack where you pay for your right to play in the dirt and make your fortune. After we paid, we got our little complementary buckets of red dirt and sat down at the sluicing troughs and proceeded to uncover all kinds of native stones that are just beautiful but nothing of value. We discovered that it's really fun to play in the dirt once in a while as a grown-up. Seriously, there's something so simple and childlike and freeing to look for treasures, moving dirt turned to mud in the sieve as you roll the rocks in circles under your palms to get as much of the red dirt off as you can, watching the fresh water turn to a muddy stream as it carries away the obscuring veil which covered the sparkle of potential riches just sitting in the bottom of your sieve box. Needless to say, we caught the mining bug and bought a big bucket of red dirt! We sluiced, and got red stuff all over us and I ruined my nails and we ooohed and aaahed over each other and our neighbor’s finds, and then went down to the creek and sluiced and threw back (we had no idea what we were looking for so who knows, we may have thrown back a fortune!) then back to the troughs to sluice and oooh and aaah once more before we began the long drive back. The whole time, we were talking and laughing and meeting other people – we truly enjoyed our day. We ended up with a lot of sapphires and rubies and my daughter found one star sapphire that is particularly valuable but for me, the hidden gem, the best find of the day, priceless beyond all imagining, was the time I spent with a fascinating young woman who just happens to be my daughter.