The rain started Thursday on our drive to North Carolina, and we were hoping that the front would move through by Friday morning. When we woke up Friday, it was still raining with the clouds settling over the mountains.   We backed up our departure time an hour and a half hoping to miss the worst of the rain.   We arrived at the parking lot at the Ray Mine about 10:30, and the rain was easing up.   Ron, Gary and I got organized and walked up to the dumps where Mike had been digging for a couple of hours.   He had already collected some nice specimens of beryl and amazonite.   I spent most of the day collecting in the creek figuring that I could collect in the dumps on the second day.   My first specimen of the day was a nicely terminated apatite crystal.   I had soon found a couple of green beryl crystals, and the rain was soon forgotten.   As we packed up for the day and headed down the mountain, it started raining much harder and we ended up getting a shower when we changed out of our digging clothes.   Luckily, the temperature had risen to nearly 60 degrees by the end of the day, so the rain felt refreshing.   On the way back for the evening, we stopped at the NC Mineral Museum on the Parkway to see the renovations.   It is a wonderful educational museum, but I missed seeing some of the beautiful specimens that they once had on display.