Vanek's Great Adventure

Thunder Mountain Mine-Keystone Sep 30, 2008

Today was an easy day in Keystone, SD. We did some school work in the morning and found Thunder Mountain Mine in the early afternoon. It was really great! We went on a tour of an original Keystone Valley gold mine and learned all about hard rock mining in the valley. It was a great story and a great tour. Then Teague and the boys decided to try their own hand at panning. Each person came away with at least one flake of gold. There were many small garnets, however, and the kids loved finding those as well as some iron pyrite (fool's gold) Made for a great day. On the way back to the trailer, we stopped at a beautiful lake (Center Lake) and did a little kayaking and a little fishing. It felt great to get the boats in the water again (they were getting dusty!) The boys and Teague did a some fishing but had no luck. It was a very pleasant, peaceful evening and a relaxing way to wind down a bit. Teague and the boys have been catching small trout in the stream near us (Iron Creek) They catch just enough to cook over a fire for an appetizer. Yummy! John writes... We went gold panning. You gold pan by scooping up dirt. Then you swish the gold pan side to side with water. Next, you dip the gold pan in and out of the water. Then, pick out the minerals. This process takes about one minute. Thomas writes... Today was really cool. We went to and old abandoned mine called Thunder Mine. we got a guided tour. At the end we got to gold pan. There were some garnets in the gold pan. I got two flakes of gold, but they were small.

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