Strike It Rich @ Gold Bug Park

I had family coming into town, and wanted to give them a fun experience in Sacramento. My nieces (13, 11, 8) were a great age for this… and as a bonus, the two oldest had just studied the gold rush in school. We scheduled a private tour (VERY reasonably priced, $ 100 for a group up to 5 and then $ 17 for each person after that). Our tour guide, Rich, was very passionate about gold mining, and was entertaining for the adults and the kids. In a little over 2 hours, we had his complete attention for historical information and ask any questions we wanted, and were able to tour two mines, get lots and lots of history behind it (there were so many little tidbits learned it was pretty awesome!) and then we got a lesson on how to «pan for gold» and keep what we found. The tour includes that everyone will get gold (flakes) and possibly gemstones (we found peridot, garnet, something that looked like emerald but I can’t remember what he called it, if not emerald, and quartz). Everyone left with a ½ ounce vile of their findings – and the kids were beyond excited about that. My 2 year old didn’t have to pay, but Rich even got a pan out for her and she was able to take away her own treasure from the tour. During the tour, Rich also let the kids get interactive and do some hammering, and also pushing of the cart — pretty awesome. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this tour! You can go tour the park without a private tour, but Rich made our experience so wonderful, everyone was raving about how much fun we had and how interesting it was in the car on the way home. My family is new to California, we have been here a year, and I felt so pleased to have found this park, and be able to share this experience with my family visiting from the midwest. I have another family member coming next month and am considering taking the tour again! Thanks for a fantastic morning, Rich!