Gold, fools.

The price of gold has climbed through the roof in recent years, sparking, believe it or not another gold rush in America. The Clarion is not talking about the rush of folks bringing Aunt Betty's gold jewelry into the local pawn shop and turning it around for cash. Although, anecdotally, according the ad volume for such transactions, there is a lot of momentum for that kind of gold rush, too.

The Clarion, however, is talking about the old school, 49er style, honest-to-goodness, gold rush, as in take your panning equipment to a silty river or stake a claim to some land and break out your picks and shovels. The price of gold has crept up to near $900 per ounce. (Something Clarion was predicting, to loud laughter, as long ago as September 2000.) This has sparked a greatly renewed interest in gold amongst average folks. Gold prospecting vacations are at an all-time high. Mining hobby and supply shops can't keep the required equipment on the shelves, some are reporting as long as a three month backlog on new prospecting supplies. The urge stretches from coast to coast and everywhere in between, Indiana, Vermont, and Michigan, as well as more familiar, California and Alaska are just a few of the many states amateur prospectors are excited about exploring. Some experts estimate that less than 15% of the total gold deposits in California have been mined to date.

Much as it sounds like a fun adventure and/or vacation, word is don't count on it paying for the cost of your trip. If you have fun in the great outdoors, searching for gold is another way to do it, and like fishing, the stories of catches/finds get bigger and better with time.

A final word from the Economist, "The game has not changed that much since the 1850s, according to Steve Herschbach, the owner of the Alaska Mining and Diving shop in Anchorage. He figures. “If you think digging ditches in pouring down rain while being eaten alive by bugs is fun, well you're gonna love gold mining.”