You know sometimes you yell and scream and announce to EVERYONE that you are not going to do something. Then you end up doing it? Well, having kids has forced that on me more than once. As they get older it happens more and more. I think I'm supposed to learn to keep my lips zipped but that lesson hasn't yet sunk in. I spent all park day Monday telling Michelle that I would not be attending her wonderful field trip :hands on hips: "no matter what" only to have to eat crow on Tuesday and beg admittance at the last minute.
See I have "Mommy Brain" I don't always remember things. So the fact that my kids have been *begging* to go on another pan for gold adventure since their last Gold Rush Adventure in, what, 2005? The reminders have not stopped. A trip was requested as recently as late August but of course I ignored it. :sigh: It wasn't until I slept on the idea of the California Gold Rush that I realized that we just *had* to go.
What in the world might I do to prep? Come on! I work at the library on Tuesday night so I grabbed some books for the kids to browse on the way. 4 different books with similar titles about California's Gold Rush. That were perfect for our 20 minutes at 5 miles an hour due to 3 lanes of the freeway closed for an accident.
We ended up arriving just about 15 minutes late to
Julian Mining Company 3 miles North or was that West? of Julian on Hwy 78.
We worked the sluice box, used gold rockers, panned for gold, cared for the miner's animals, played the hoop and stick relay game, made apple cider and took a hay ride. It was *so* much more fun than the last Gold trip we went on.
The layout of the property, the lack of shoving forced education, the personalities of the owners/staff, and the treasure all made this trip much better than the last.
Talk about treasure! The pictures below are from the first few minutes of our first stop, at the sluice box. It is worth the fun just to go up and pay for a bag of ore rough for $10 or $20 for the Motherload or $40 for the Jackpot. Per the website "A typical bag might contain quartz, amethyst, iron pyrite, sodalite, obsidian, copper, turquoise, shells, shark teeth, & more." And every 5th or 6th "Jackpot" has a real gold nugget worth 40-60 bucks! Definitely worth the stop if you are in the area.
At lunch Jerick disappeared. When I went in search of him this is what I found.
Check out that look I got when he realized I had caught him. Gotta love him.
Being that we were only 3 miles from Julian we *had* to go have apple pie. We tried to go to the Candy Apple Pastry Company, unfortunately they are closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. So we ended up at Mom's Pie House behind a woman from our town (an hour and a half away) who had made a special trip just for one of their Apple Crumb pies. With a recommendation like that you bet I had one. I was ho hum about it until I neared the edge and yummy. I was wishing that dairy and I agreed because a slice of cheddar would have been perfect right then. Jerick swears that their Cinnamon Ice Cream is excellent!
We had also heard excellent things about King Leo Confections so we had to stop there on our way home on Hwy78 . Needless to say we were sugared up for the drive home.
We did make one more stop on the way home but due to photo density it will have it's own post.
Michelle of Huelle Family Adventure just posted about the trip.
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