Sutter's Mill

Today the kids and I headed off to Coloma, CA, where gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill.  We accompanied some friends of ours, for a total of 9 kids with 2 adults. My friend has 4 boys, so my girls were actually outnumbered!  We had between us ages 14, 13, 12, 10, 10, 7, 6, 5 and 3 years old.

Reproduction of the old mill

Awesome Emma

My two A's 

Adam loved throwing rocks in the river,  Laura loved climbing  the rocks

I really wish Adam liked walking more and didn't insist on being carried pretty much the entire time.  Seriously.

This historic house reminded us of Katie's house.  I have no recollection of why its historic, but its on the walking tour, darn it.


We set out to do some gold panning.  Its the one thing we didn't do.  I didn't bring enough cash, and after hauling Adam around I didn't want to find a place to get some.  My other kids were disappointed, but I just didn't care at that point.

What we did do: 

a walk through of the museum

self-guided walking tour of a bunch of cool historic structures 

a hike to a monument of the dude who found gold

ate snacks distributed by my much wiser friend who actually brought snacks

climbed next to a reproduction of Sutters Mill 

threw a bunch of rocks into the river, narrowly missing some ducks and geese

hopefully avoided poison oak

looked at the actual site of the discovery of gold

saw the scum circle where a rock was tossed into the actual yucky site of the discovery of gold

greeted a friendly rottweiler puppy who escaped from its yard while on the walking tour

carried Adam all over the place, swapping him with anyone who could hold him for a few minutes for me

had a picnic in the beautiful open air

questioned the blacksmith for a good 10 minutes while her metal cooled off

drove for over an hour each way on roads so windy I felt queasy while driving

stopped at In-n-Out on the way home for some soda so I could stay awake

We want to go back someday, so all in all, I think it was a successful outing.