Letter from CaliforniaHow Americans Caught Gold Fever AgainMike Cleary, a prospecting influencer who also works for Tesla, shows off a couple of eye-popping nuggets in Foresthill, California.Photographs by Deb Leal for The New YorkerSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyOne morning this past January, I set out in a rental car on the road to El Dorado—not the mythical city deep in the Amazon whose legendary riches lured legions of men to gruesome ends but the county in Northern California. My journey nonetheless felt perilous. As a New Yorker, I hadn’t touched a steering wheel in a year,...