April Fools Gold

A little Before and After, which happens to be very timely as it is April Fools Day, and just yesterday we took a trip to Empire Mine, a former gold mine in Grass Valley.







The grounds are beautiful, the architecture amazing, but the mine itself gave me chills.



The deepest mine is 8000 feet below the surface.



The highlight of the trip for me was the 1958 filmstrip about the history of gold mining in California. I know California wouldn't be what it is without the discovery of gold, and that the little town I call home wouldn't be on the map if it weren't for gold, but I had never realized until watching the filmstrip that gold is a relatively useless metal. It is only valuable because humans have placed value on it. Many lives have been consumed by and lost in the pursuit of gold; even the devastation of the "New World", all for the pursuit of the mother lode. It made me wonder, what if people placed value on the things I consider valuable - peace, family, freedom, to name a few - what kind of world would this be? And if we continue to pursue material wealth where are we headed?



The funny thing is, not ten minutes after I took the above picture on the Quarry Trail, I saw a lone gold prospector heading up from the river; I even thought to myself perhaps I should try my hand at gold panning. After all, it is going for over $1000 an ounce these days. You can take the girl out of the gold country, but you can't take the gold country out of the girl.

On a different note, Avery had been planning an April Fools Day treat for several weeks, and as soon as she woke up this morning we started cooking. She couldn't wait to wake George up so we could have "pizza" for breakfast.



If you guessed pepperoni and green peppers, guess again. The dough is pie crust, the sauce is strawberry jelly, the cheese is coconut (dyed with yellow food coloring), the pepperoni is a fruit roll-up carefully cut into circles, and the peppers are gum drops. It was actually quite tasty and possibly the most fun treat we have made together. We then proceeded to make "kick-me" signs to attach to each other's backs. Fun, foolish times - better than gold.