There's Gold in Them Thar Hills

In another state park near Hanging Rock was a mountain by the name of Pilot Mountain. Pilot Mountain was a real mountain. It stood all by itself in the middle of a wide-open level area. And not only that but it had a really cool round top.

It had two peaks. The first was not quite as tall as the second and had a farily normal and gentle curve. The other was surrounded on all sides by a vertical cliff. At one time you could climb the cliff to get to the top of the higher peak, but by the time we started visiting the park the cliffs were closed off.

What you could do was drive to the top of the shorter peak then walk along the ridge over to the higher peak and walk around around the peak at the foot of the cliff.

We always enjoyed the hike, but on one of the trips, I made a special discovery.

I discovered gold!

Or at least it looked like gold, but my family convinced me that it was fool’s gold, since if it was real, someone would have taken it all. Undetered, I also found a lot of white and purple quartz.

There were treasures to be found and fortunes to be made.

But, not by me.

I never made a bit of money of my fool’s gold or not-so-precious gemstones.

What I learned was that, gold and other things found in the wild need, cleansing and refining before they are valued. My parents did not seem to be that interested in getting that done, and I found out later that refining is an expensive process.

I guess the biggest lesson is that you don’t just discover success. You might get lucky and find something, but if you don’t do anything with it, you’re no better off.

So what wonderful resources have you discovered recently that you need to do something with before the opportunity is gone.

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1. Lost on a Mountain Top
2. It's All Down-Hill From Here
3. Best April Fools Jokes of 2009
4. Virgle = Boring
5. A Rhode Island sunset for Tabetha!