[indigoshift]

It's fun. When I was 16, my dad bought a 50% stake in an actual gold mine in northern Idaho. We spent the summer mining for gold--after we spent a few weeks getting the neglected mine up and running again.

My dad and brother would go underground and do the actual digging; my mom and I stayed topside, with me running the hoist and the both of us working the sluice box.

I found a nugget as big as my thumb that year. We found a number of smaller nuggets as well.

Two years before, my dad had a placer claim for a stretch of creek about 10 miles from the mine just described, and we spent all summer out in the woods, dredging and panning for gold. Didn't find anything, though.