Gold!

In an attempt to get out of the house and stop nagging the kids to do their jobs all summer, I decided one day last week to drive the boys up to the mountains to go visit the Phoenix Gold Mine.  There are a few big gold mine tours available right off the freeway, but we went for the hole-in-the-wall more authentic variety.

The boys were thrilled (albeit a little nervous- Adam and Evan insisted on holding my hand through the whole tour).

After the tour we did a little gold digging ourselves.  There is a stream that runs down from the top of the mountain and goes right by the mine.  Gold is continually washing down the hill, and they let people pan for gold there in the stream.  Anything we found, we could keep.  While we were there a girl found a rock that the gold-man said was worth $20-30.  We found a speck.

It turns out our speck wasn’t actually gold, but gold-glass (a form of fool’s gold).  Very different on the value scales.  If you look carefully you can kind of see all the little flecks of gold floating in the water (that is actually probably gold glass, since gold is heavy enough that it sinks to the bottom).  It was much more thrilling and shiny in person!

We didn’t come home rich, but we sure had fun!