Gold Bug Park in Hangtown (Placerville)

As many of you know, Placerville is a mining town. Recently they've been upgrading Gold Bug Park & Mine  as an area of interest (it's still small-time but interesting enough.) So we drove into town to explore.

The entrance is in the back of the gift shop. The "tour" is either 5 or 8 dollars, it includes a hard hat and an audio wand.

Miners followed quartz veins to find gold. This mine was dug manually and blasted with dynamite. We could still see holes where they would have placed the sticks of explosives before setting them off.

According to the recording mining was hard work (obviously) and really only paid for your "jeans and beans." Not many made it rich. "The mines were closed by order of the President as gold mining was considered a non-essential industry and men were needed to go to war."

No, we couldn't see any gold veins running through the rock. But since it was abandoned for the war, it is likely gold could still be found there.

Below everyone is looking up an air shaft. We couldn't see to the top.
If you would like to read the history of this mine: click here.

Next we headed up the hill to the stamp mill where gold was extracted from the quartz.

The machine was amazing...massive. We were told it could be heard echoing throughout the hills up to five miles away.

Below is an explanation of how it works.

You can see how the machine worked by watching this miniature in the video here. It was small but quite loud.

In all, I am glad we went. It's worth an afternoon. There are trails and picnic benches as well. If you want to visit, as you're driving through Placerville, just look for the signs that say Gold Bug Park and follow them.

Yes I know...

Yes I know it's February and I'm still blogging about Christmas. Do you remember my New Year mantra? Well...I have been so busy "engaging" in the higher ups on my list that blogging is taking a lot longer than usual. I aim to be done with Christmas by summer. Heh.

Dipping Chocolates

If I remember correctly it was Dad's grandparents who used to dip chocolates during the Christmas season and hand them out to family and friends. Dad remembers seeing the living room table covered with them—and also remembers a disastrous year when the chocolates got left out in the sun near the window and were all ruined. (At least not good for giving away.)

Since hearing about that lost family tradition, I wanted to give it a shot this year. I thought we all might enjoy it including little Malaika and Zuki. Since we are beginners at this, we figured starting with one flavor (coconut) would be safest.

We cut them out and rolled them into balls.

Dad showed us how to temper the chocolate and dip the candies.

Unfortunately I was wrong about the little girls doing this part. Obviously Malaika is still too young...but turns out Zuki is too. She put her whole hand in the chocolate to squish it around commenting on how weird it felt...Sooooo she was done after that. This activity is fun for a family...but probably for one just a little bit older.

I doubled the batch because I was worried about how many pieces the recipe would make. Turns out we didn't need to. Doubled, it made over 100 chocolates! My bad, I forgot to look for the yield before starting out.

They were deliciously close to an Almond Joy. Mom and I couldn't stop eating them! Recipe and technique found here.

Ice in Folsom

You can find a fun little ice rink in Old Folsom during the holidays. Mo has never been ice skating so of course we had to go. Below, Our attempt at synchronized skating. We never did get it right for the camera.

It looks small, but it was plenty big enough for those of us who were inexperienced. (Me included.)

Enough with the nice pictures. This is how it really went down:

(Below, Anna trying to skate backwards. Didn't even move an inch.)

I fell three times..."Toe pick!"Zuki did great after she got over her initial shock of falling—I don't think she knew what to expect. And Mo did great too, he made sure the wall was in good solid condition throughout the evening.

Thanks Dad for taking pictures all night and Mom for hanging out, we love it when you guys are there!