The 90 Minute Gold Rush

They say history repeats itself, presumably because humans forget to remember that they've done this before and what exactly they got last time they tried it. Speaking from my experience, I think the past does come to mind when embarking on the decision because we notice the resemblance, but our great powers of reason convince us that the present choice is fundamentally different, and we can maintain that assumption up until we run into the same results.

Yesterday we took the kids up into Mt. Evans, just beyond the historic gold mining town of Idaho Springs for a hike. We hiked along a rushing creek, and afterward dipped our feet in the water when Nathaniel noticed several shiny golden flecks at the bottom of the creek. He put them on his finger to examine them, and though he assumed they were mica, he couldn't deny the very yellow metallic nature of them.

Quaint Little Idaho Springs

So we went back to Idaho Springs for lunch and stopped at the historic gold mine where they now run tours and sell merchandise instead of mining for gold. We bought a gold panning kit that comes with an instruction booklet and a bag of sand mixed with real gold ore flecks for practice. We then took our cheeseburgers back up the mountain and Nathaniel tried his hand at panning for gold... just in case.

The kit came with a tiny glass vile to keep your gold findings, and according to the current price of gold, we would only need to fill 1/32" of that vile each hour to earn an equivalent wage to Nathaniel's current job. So he tried it for an hour, and although he was proud of his newly developed skill manifest by his being able to leave nothing but the heaviest black iron sand in his pan, the gold flecks were the first to go, and no shimmering flecks mingled with the iron at the bottom. 

At the end of the day Nathaniel remarked that it appeared the gold rush happened all over today. People came from far away to try their hand in gold, but the only ones that really profited were the ones selling supplies, food, and lodging.

But in spite of repeating history and discovering the same results all over again, we at least cut the number of years it took the first time to a 90 minute venture. And now that Nathaniel can capture iron, we can start manufacturing skillets for sale. Check back here to purchase your own in about 20 years when we've collected enough iron dust to begin.