Mrs. A. Strikes Gold!

After Seward, I went to Fairbanks. I went on a riverboat cruise and visited a gold mine. During the gold rush years, people could travel by riverboat to get to the mines. There were two places to find gold--in the dirt at the bottom of a river or underground. Wherever the gold was found, miners used water to help separate it from the other rocks. Gold is heavier than the other rocks, so if you add water and swirl, the gold will fall to the bottom. At the mine, they gave me some dirt from the bottom of the river. I added water, swirled the dirt around and dumped all of the dirt except the stuff on the bottom of my pan. Guess what was on the bottom? GOLD!!! I had about $10 in gold flakes, not enough to make me rich yet. But, they did let me hold a nugget of gold that was found in the mine a few years ago. That nugget in my hand is worth over $30,000. If I found a few of those, I would be rich!