Gold Digging (again)

When we arrived at the Thousands Trails rv park, we met Mike and he happened to mention he had been doing some gold digging.  Ed leaned over to me and said "I want to talk to him."  That did not surprise me.  Over the course of the four weeks that we have been here, we have developed a friendship with Mike and his family.

  At first Mike just told us where to find a creek that we could pan gold in.  Then we just asked him to go with us.  Back when we did the gold panning in North Carolina we paid for the dirt, this time we just went out in a creek and dug up the dirt.

We get there and go down an embankment to the creek. 

We have to haul everything down to the creek

 

Then we walk a ways down the creek

We had picked up some new waders in Bronson, so we got to use them.  When we first arrived at the creek, there was ice on the water so I was glad to have them. 

Mike didn't have any but he sure could have used them

 
Panning for gold is hard work.

Mike made this sucker tool.  You  dig  down to the bedrock (the rock bottom of the creek)  and then suck up the dirt on top of it.  That is where you are suppose to find the gold.  After you get the dirt up then you have to pan it.



There is a small speck of gold in there.  If you look really hard you may see it.  lol



The second time we went Mike's wife Sherry went with us. 



Looks like she is taking it easy,  but she is just taking a lunch break

Third time we went out we went up in the hills.  Ed and Mike planned on moving some rocks and digging out some of the dirt out from under it.

They moved some big rocks

 I took the metal detector out to see if I could find anything.

Climbing these rocks were  hard



It was rough going but it was fun

All I found was some bullets, It looks like the area was used for  target practice.

This is the result of our hard work

Ed says in 10 years we might have 50 dollars worth  lol

Well there is another episode of our gold digging days.  Hopefully with many more to follow.  Oh by the way,  when we are done we collapse.

Bye for now     Ed and Lyn