Emerald Village is a tourist attraction built around the defunct Bon Ami feldspar mine. It is picturesque and rugged and out of the way, so good luck finding it! (Follow the signs, not your GPS...)
We arrived in the pouring rain and made a run for (naturally) the gift shop. The gift shop here was a little sparse and empty (thank goodness!) but did offer snacks, ice cream and an upstairs indoor picnic area. 
We headed back to the mining area for the real attraction here- gem mining in the fresh water sluice.
Although it was cool and the rain was coming down in sheets, the mining area is completely covered. We bought a 2 gallon bucket of mining rough for $20 and headed down the sluice to claim an open area.
(These aren't the little bags of sand and pebbles you get at most "mining" attractions. These are rocks! Buckets range from 1 gallon to 30 gallons and from $7.50-$1,000! For higher prices, you get bigger gemstones. They actually have stonecutters and gemsetters on the premises if you'd like to turn your finds into semiprecious jewelry right there on the spot.) 
While the kids dumped trowels full of rocks into their screens and swished them around, excitedly pullling out the colored stones, I took some photos of the old mine entrance behind us. It's really a beautiful area.
Although it was chilly out, stone swishing is hard work and the kids soon peeled off their jackets as we purchased them a second bucket of gemstone rough to mine. They had a blast!
We left the mining store and headed up to the Bon Ami Mine Museum, just across the street. Guess what? It's a gift shop too! Rates for the self-guided museum tour were $6 for adults and $5 for kids, but we decided to skip the tour since everyone was damp, tired and getting a little grumpy.
If we'd been staying close by, I would have been tempted to come back for the black light mine tour being held that evening. Many of the minerals in the mine glow under black light and the tour looked really cool. Instead, we bought a pound of fudge at the Mine Museum for the trip back to Asheville. ($11)
As soon as we got back to the hotel, the gem trading began! My oldest wanted everyone's amythests while the middle child wanted anything green. My daughter just wanted all of them!
