Day 10 - There's Gold in Them Hills!

 

No driving today as I am spending another day in Twentynine Palms. One of Larry's hobbies is mining for gold, so I asked if he'd take me along to watch and learn more about it. It doesn't take much to talk him into going out in the desert and digging, so by 730 or so we were headed out to his 80 acre plot. The land is owned by BLM (Bureau of Land Management), but leased to Larry and 3 other guys. It's about 18 miles from his house, much of it on Hwy62, and the final couple of miles over some pretty rough terrain. Larry uses an older model 4 wheel drive truck to get to the spot.

Larry uses a battery powered dry washer (instead of a wet washer) to eliminate most of the rocks and dirt. A small amount of "pay dirt" remains in the machine, he then "pans" that using using water. Eventually everything is eliminated except any valuable minerals....if there are any. So the process is: use a pick or some sharp tool to loosen the dirt from the side of a bank or hill, shovel the dirt and rocks into the dry washer, let it eliminate most, pan what remains, and do it all over again. I tried panning the pay dirt a time or two, but was overly cautious in fear of throwing away the big one. So Larry did most of the panning to save time.

We found a few small flakes during the process, which was good, and before packing up to head home, Larry decided to use his metal detector (another way to find the gold) to check a pile of rocks he had run through the washer on a prior trip. He had just started and got a pretty good reading on the detector. Trying not to get overly excited because lots of things can cause the reading, he kept passing it over one spot and eliminating rocks and dirt. Before long he was left with a nice size nugget that he estimated to be about 10-12 grams. It was his largest find to date and his yelling could be heard throughout the canyon.

He needed a good find, because he and Dana are going Christmas shopping today and we were supposed to be back home by 11am......but didn't make it. The large nugget helped soften his being late. I headed back to the motel to rest for a while, and as I was leaving Larry's house a roadrunner crossed the road about 10 yds from us. I rested for a while and watched a little football. (Out here the first game on Sunday starts about 10am, the 2nd one around 1pm, the night game around 5.) I decided to go back to Joshua Tree National Park to look around and take some pictures.

On the way to the park I stopped by Debbie and Drifter's house to see if she was home. You might remember her from my walk....she has the beautiful golden palomino quarter horse, and lives just down the road from Larry. Saw her husband in the yard, introduced myself, and Debbie came out and we talked a while. They have a couple of other horses, and just recently became grandparents for the first time. I gave Debbie a t-shirt and apple butter from Virginia, and headed to the park for a couple of hours looking around. On the way out of the park a coyote crossed the road not more than 20 or so yards in front of me.

I stopped and got gas for tomorrow, checked the tires, stopped by the grocery store to restock the snack bag, and then back to the hotel. Tomorrow I'll go by Larry and Dana's house for a while, and then head east across the Mojave into Arizona. I don't remember meeting too many people in Arizona, so the trip across there might be pretty short. Then to New Mexico, west Texas, and back to Julie's for Christmas. After Christmas I'll drive some of the route I walked east of Dallas, then back home. By the way, I found a way to make the pictures a little larger on the blog, so that's better.

Pictures:
Larry feeding the washer with dirt;
Me feeding the washer;
His best find to date;
Debbie and Duster;
Some of the beauty of the desert;
A Joshua tree, one of many in the park.