Story from The Chicago Tribune
Kids love ghost stories. They love ghost tours on which they discover the hotel room next door is supposedly haunted even more.
Then they go to bed and the idea becomes a lot less lovable in the dark.
But the resulting sleeplessness just shows you how good the ghost tours are at Columbia State Historic Park in Columbia, east of San Francisco.
That’s not the only surprise awaiting first-time visitors to the town that seemingly stopped aging in the 19th century. Folks dress in period clothes. Many buildings have been rooted in place for more than a century. The only vehicle allowed downtown is the stagecoach and a stagecoach ride is a must. Hotel rooms are as close as possible to what they were in the 1800s, without asking guests to forgo electricity and indoor plumbing.
And there’s gold in that thar town.
One surprising ripple effect of the Great Recession is the resurgence of independent gold prospecting. In California, evaporated savings, layoffs, and foreclosures sent some running to the hills.