The Gold Metal

You wanted to see ALL the gold? Well here it is. Each bottle of "product" is from a particular venue or time period of the trip. If you think it looks impressive in the bottle laying on its side, be sure to look at the second photo showing the bottles standing up. Same bottles. But now the gold is considerably more difficult to see and equally less impressive.
The bottle in the upper right of the photo immediately below has our "what's this?" collection. Because we know how it responds in terms of specific gravity and density, it must be either: gold with mercury on it left over from the old days of the gold rush when that substance was used, or silver, or platinum. Most people think that gold is gold- and nothing more. But gold in its natural state is "mostly gold", but also a blend of other substances, usually metals like those mentioned above. Those other metals are much harder to ID for the untrained eye. We have maybe a half dozen such specimens.
The bottle in the center is from the general Fairbanks area. The other collections by comparison are less in quantity and much finer in size.
BUT- every piece of gold we found has been a real treasure. It represents some degree of success at something we are only starting at. It represents a marvelous learning experience. It represents time spent with each other and with new friends. If this trip were the travel Olympics, we have surely won the Gold- even if we had to handle a lot of dirt to get there!
And we'll be looking for more gold, whenever and wherever we can....