Gold Country, Vacation Part V

We started our long, long drive back to CA on July 9. It's 20 hours driving time alone! The car DVD player was worth every penny. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! The first night we stayed in Roseburg, OR. The second night we stayed in Folsom, CA. That hotel was so nice--mainly I liked that it was so new! It even smelled new, had only been open 6 mos. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner, then swam in the pool till maybe 11? It was pretty late.

Sunday, July 11, we went to Gold Country, in Coloma. Marshall Gold Discovery State Park took up pretty much the whole town of Coloma. It was very interesting--lots of old buildings and things to see. However, it was extremely hot!! The kids were whiny and crabby and tired and uncooperative! Especially Lauren. Oh my, the fits she threw!

Austin by a saw mill


I don't think I've ever bought an Icee/Slurpee before. Seriously. I don't even like them that much. And prefer to eat my calories, not drink them. But it was *SO* hot, that we broke down and bought two large Icee's-- $3.50 each. And they were worth every penny. At least they got this stinker smiling again. But only temporarily... She was still tired, after all.


By one of the old cabins. Can you tell who was in a mood?! And Caroline looks like she's trying to escape the stroller...


The site where gold was first discovered in the American River.

We let our kids dig around in the river water/dirt for just a short, short time, as we needed to get going on our drive home. And we still had the museum to see.

They each grabbed a handful of river dirt. Which was really cool--you can actually see gold flecks in it. A museum volunteer told us geologists estimate 80% of the gold still to be in the area. Of course it's not easy to find big "chunks" anymore. ;) But visitors panning for gold still find it! You can see the bad mood was only getting worse...

I'd hoped the gold flecks would show up in the picture, but they don't. :(

My friend who used to live kind of near Coloma said it wouldn't be too hot near the river. Well, she was right--it was cooler by the water. But everywhere else in the little town was *HOT*! At least the museum was air-conditioned!

We would like to go back, and next time I think we should go gold-panning first. And we'll bring our own pans. The kids really wanted to do this, and we ran out of time. We should have done it first--it would have been cooler, and they would have liked playing in the water. The buildings were interesting to Brian and me, but only a few were open. Maybe b/c we went on a Sunday? Not sure. It was a neat trip, though!