Treasure Hunting Never Gets Old

As I was out cutting some weeds and tree branches today to clean up the perimeter of the yard some more, I took a break to look for gold. Seriously. I'm not trying to write some cutesy piece of fiction, I really went to look for gold. There is a creek that runs alongside our yard. Technically it is a brook, at least that's what it says on the topographic map for this area, but I still call it a creek. There hasn't been a great history of finding gold in VT, but there has been some gold found. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any gold found in or around my yard. Yet.
A few days ago I saw a show on the History channel about the California Gold Rush. They explained the process of gold traveling down a river and being deposited on the inside banks of curves in the river. I don't remember if they said why, but the gold is found among black sand. They used some great computer generated imagery to illustrate. It was helpful in making me think I know how to find gold.
I remember as a kid I always had hopes of finding treasure. I've never lost that interest, but I have accepted the reality that I probably never will find treasure. Wouldn't it be great to find a huge chest full of crowns, scepters, goblets, rings, coins and assorted jewels? Yes, yes it would. But that's unrealistic, so I just go looking for gold nuggets in the creek that runs alongside my yard in Vermont.
No success today however. I did not find any gold. That might be because it was cold and I didn't want to touch the water. I'm sure the gold is there. I'll get it eventually. As I gave up the search for today, I came across a license plate lying among the weeds and leaves and stuff. Though rusted so that no paint is visible, you don't need paint to read the imprinted lettering of the plate. It is a Vermont registration tag from 1942. I'd rather have the gold, but this was pretty neat to find as well. There is a lot of rusting metal on the slope from the yard down to the creek. I wondered how long it had been there, now with the discovery of the license plate I have an idea.
So, uh, that's what I did today. What did you do?