If you've ever been to Fairbanks Alaska - you've undoubtedly visited the El Dorado Gold Mine to try your hand at panning for gold.
Yes...we fell for it too!
It was a fun and informative train ride to the mine on a very rainy day in Fairbanks. One of the first days of rain in June we saw on our entire trip!
They passed out plastic ponchos to everyone on the train - some of the more "macho" guys didn't want one. Boy were they sorry! Perry and I even took the umbrellas they offered and were we glad of it!
The train stopped at the top of the mountain where we disembarked in the pouring rain to see our demonstration of sluicing. (that's where they have a huge back hoe fill a box with dirt and then pour water down the "sluice" to shake out the gold).
There were 4 or 5 employees of the Mine showing us how to pan for gold - and sure enough - they had both gold flakes and nuggets in their pans!
Boy were we excited ! a chance to find some for ourselves.
Everyone from the train got a bag full of "pay dirt", a gold pan and found a seat to start panning.
We found about $33 worth of gold flakes (colors) and since the campground owners had graciously paid for our visit we were AHEAD $33 for the day!
What fun - and well worth the trip - even if you have to pay for it yourself! Total cost for two people is less than $75.00.
_________________________________
We've always been big Dreamers :)
http://www.Work-4-Yourself.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to our travel blog and feel free to share your comments