Coloma

Yesterday I went to Coloma with Jackson's 4th grade class.. 2 buses of kids, 120 kids and 46 parents (mostly in cars -who wants to ride the bus?) embarked on this journey, leaving the classrooms at 9:15 a.m. and we returned to school about 6 p.m.

I was in charge of these 5 boys: Jackson, Jacob, Tyler, Robert and Brennon. With our group was also Tyler's dad Ari. We spent the day walking around the town, gold panning, touring the museum, watching a movie of the gold rush town history and seeing a ranger give a talk about when gold was first discovered while building the sawmill. We climbed up the mountain to see the monument at the top. The day went pretty well, the kids all behaved and got along (which I didn't expect) and it was only about 90 instead of the forecasted 100 degrees.



The gold panning location was out in the bright sunlight and the kids went at it for about 45 minutes in the heat.. so after we headed to the icee store and made sure they all got one whether they brought $$ with them or not. We couldn't let just one be left out of icee's, right? We then settled in the shade to watch the ranger give a talk about how they build the sawmill and when gold was discovered there. It was neat to hear his description, all in real, understandable language --it was like hearing it from someone who was there.


It was a long day... at 3:30 the kids all came back together for a bbq... afterwards we got ready to leave. I had carpooled with a friend and we intended for our kids to ride back with us -Jack kept saying he was going back on the bus.. but at the last minute -he opted to ride in the car with us -which proved a good choice -seeing as how we beat the buses back by about 27 minutes.