We were just outside Franklin, North Carolina this week when we stopped at a Gem Mine. We got filthy, covered with mud, while looking for Rubies, Emeralds, and whatever other semiprecious stones they could put in a bucket filled with NC mud. After digging through $35 worth of this muck, we found a few raw stones that for merely hundreds more, could be polished to gems valued at $10 to $20. I guess the marble eggs we saw in the store for $3.99 weren't the only ones laid that day!

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