Gold Fever

GOLD NUGGETS: Until last night, I had no idea that there was a National Park in the middle of Seattle's Skid Row, er, I mean Pioneer Square, district.

A few days ago, I saw a notice of a field trip to the Klondike Gold museum through the Shoreline school the kids attend a couple days a week. CJ, especially, has been so into metals and mining lately, when I saw the outing offered, I didn't hesitate to sign up.

The tiny National Park location is on the corner of Second and Jackson in the historic Hotel Cadillac building.

Our outing today started with a 15-minute movie about the Yukon Gold Rush that began in 1897. On the heels of a national depression, Seattle benefitted greatly by becoming an important stop on the way north for about 70 percent of all gold stampeders.

The movie was fascinating. It included dozens of photos from the gold rush, and though the inhabitants wore different clothing, it was easy to pick out the parts of town depicted in the video.

After the video the park ranger invited the group down to the basement of the museum to pan for gold. Naturally, the kids (20 or so) were all totally JAZZED about this. Problem was, only three kids out of the group got a chance to go through the motions. Why this was the case, who knows. By my count, there were at least four rangers (or at least if not rangers, they were adults with park badges on) manning the museum, and the place was completely dead except for our group. But after three junior prospectors, our tour guide cut the panning off, and went back to her post, sitting behind the desk with a couple of other people in the ghost town lobby. Not cool, in my book. I assured CJ and Annabelle they'd get their chance to pan gold on another day. (And we ended up dropping $$ in the NPS gift shop for a pan your own gold at home kit. Not to be a cynic, but maybe that's why the NPS guide for our group cut the panning short - to drive up gift shop sales.)

My sour grapes aside, the museum was very interesting and I'm glad we went. We learned that Seattle's work force grew from 3,500 in 1880 to over 237,000 by 1910 due to the gold rush in the Klondike. We also learned that very familiar names in modern day Seattle harken back to the gold rush era.

For instance, George Bartell came to Seattle at the age of 18 with only fifteen dollars in his pocket. In 1890, after working at the Lake Washington Pharmacy for only two weeks, he purchased it from its owner and Bartell Drugs was founded. Bartell drug stores are all over Seattle still today. Interestingly., though Bartell was doing well when stampeders were headed for the Yukon Territory, he couldn't resist the lure himself. He turned the pharmacy over to his assistant, and headed toward the Yukon Territory. Per the Bartell Drug Web site, "He returned to Seattle a year later with enough gold to pay for most of his trip expenses and a vision of Bartell Drugs' future."


And then there was John W. Nordstorm, who emigrated from Sweden to the U.S. at age of 16 with $5 to his name. He worked his way across the U.S. in railways, mines, lumber yards and shipyards, until he arrived in Seattle in 1896. Nordstrom made some good bank in the Klondike gold rush and invested it here in Seattle and the rest, as they say, is history.

Did you know: There is a thin layer of gold on an astronauts' visors to fend off dangerous effects solar radiation.

OH AND BY THE WAY: A week from now the Mars Science Laboratory will be blasting off from the Space Coast. And I'll be there to watch it go down!

Today I got my itinerary for the two days of the Tweetup. It Is Awesome.

Wednesday, Nov. 23/L-2: Tweetup Day 1

6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. – Registration at the Kennedy Space Center Press Accreditation Badging Building; travel to the press site, set up, meet fellow participants
9:00 a.m. – Welcome by Trent Perrotto (@NASA) & Veronica McGregor (@NASAJPL)
9:05 a.m. – Meet the tweeps
10:30 a.m. – Break
11:00 a.m. – NASA TV starts http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tweetup
11:05 a.m. – Jim Green, director, Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters
11:25 a.m. – Doug McCuistion, director, Mars Exploration program, NASA Headquarters
11:45 a.m. – Curiosity engineering: Allen Chen and Betina Pavri, systems engineers, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
12:00 p.m. – Ryan Bechtel, Department of Energy
12:15 p.m. – Curiosity science: Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project scientist, Mars Science Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Pan Conrad, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's SAM Instrument at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
12:30 p.m. -- Rex Engelhardt, mission manager, NASA's Launch Services Program (@NASA_LSP)
12:45 p.m. – Lunch break (opportunity to visit the NASA cafeteria, but it closes at 1 p.m.)
2:00 p.m. – Tour of NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, including a drive by historical launch pads and stops at Launch Complex 41 with a briefing from Mike Woolley of United Launch Alliance (@ULAlaunch), the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Apollo Saturn V Center.
6:00 p.m. – Return to the press site

Friday, Nov. 25/Launch: Tweetup Day 2
7:00 a.m. – Badges get you in to Kennedy Space Center Press Site
7:15 a.m. – Group picture beside the countdown clock (NASA photographer Paul Alers, @NASAhqphoto)
Group 1:
7:30 -- Eyes on the Solar System (@NASA_Eyes) demo with Doug Ellison (@Doug_Ellison), JPL Visualization Producer in press briefing room
8:00 a.m. -- Expedition 25 Astronaut Doug Wheelock (@Astro_Wheels)
8:15 a.m. -- Bill Nye the Science Guy, (@thescienceguy)
Group 2:
7:30 a.m. -- Expedition 25 Astronaut Doug Wheelock (@Astro_Wheels)
7:45 a.m. -- Bill Nye the Science Guy, (@thescienceguy)
8:00 a.m. -- Eyes on the Solar System (@NASA_Eyes) demo with Doug Ellison (@Doug_Ellison), JPL Visualization Producer in press briefing room
8:30 a.m. -- Special guest TBA
8:45 a.m. -- Astronaut Leland Melvin, associate administrator for Education (@Astro_Flow)
10:25 a.m. – Launch window opens for Mars Curiosity rover
(window closes at 12:08 p.m.)
~1 p.m. – Post-launch news conference on NASA TV