A few weeks ago, Jason got an email from Southwest air that he had a ton of points that would expire in September, so we started thinking, "Where can we go???" My uncle Mike lives just south of Denver and the Denver redemption points were in our range, so we called him then booked our flights for Denver! Dad joined us and we had a GREAT long weekend in Colorado. We took the 5:30AM flight... which was insane, but worked out great since we had the whole day to play once we arrived at 6:45AM. Here's Rylan looking out the window....
After we got the rental car, we headed to the nearest Einstein Bagels for yummy breakfast sandwiches. Then we went west to Idaho Springs to tour the Argo Gold Mine and Mill. It was SO cool! Here we are in jail! hahaha
The tour guide gave a wonderful presentation on the rocks of the area and the history of the Argo.
This table was so loud! It would shake and shake and shake, leaving the gold in the ruts. Pretty cool!
This was the loudest thing I have ever heard! The miners would put the TNT in the holes to blast open more of the mine. These guys had to be deaf! It was very interesting.
Next we rode up to the top on a bus and the rest of the tour began. We got to go into the Double Eagle Gold Mine. Over 600 mines were in the area and they all hooked up to the Argo Tunnel to get to the mine.
We all got a hard hat and entered the 54 degree mine. The cool felt great! Jacob loved looking at the walls and trying to find veins of gold.
Rylan thought touching the walls was the best part!
Our family in the mine!
We only went about 300 feet into the mine. Here are my 3 boys looking at the end. They labeled the gold veins. Super cool!
GPop and his boys at the mine entrance/exit.
Jason hoisted the boys into an old gold ore cart. They thought it was really cool!
The Argo Tunnel is closed now, but this is the entrance. It was amazing to think of all the thousands of dollars of gold that passed through that tunnel
Next stop was the mill. The mill was multi-storied and full of the equipment! It was amazing!!!
The highlight of the tour for the boys was panning for gold! This was really hard work!!!
First you dump your baggie of dirt and gold into the pan. Then you get a little water and swish is around. Shake, shake, shake and swirl, swirl, swirl until there is only a small pile of black-ish sand.
Then look for the freckle-sized flecks of gold!
The boys were slightly disappointed because they thought they would be bringing home pecan-sized chunks of gold. But the dozen freckles of gold were OK too!
After touring the mine and mill we went across the street to eat lunch at Subway. The photo of the mill was taken from our lunch table. Jason walked down to the banks of Clear Creek to touch the super cold water. Each boy got a river rock and tried to keep their hand in the water for a whole minute. It was 74 degrees outside and zero humidity! Perfect!
More to come!
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