Wednesday Full of Gold

This morning: 4 mile run around a portion of Twin Lake, breakfast, drive into Leadville to the coffee shop with free internet, Provin’ Grounds, drink a double shot espresso and upload Tuesday’s blog.

Then, a drive down to Red Cliff to give Melitta her bag which she left in the van.

Here’s her host family in Vail (Brian, Melitta, Brenna and Marilyn) outside the only restaurant in Red Cliff:

I drove east out of Red Cliff up into the mountain on Shrine Pass, a narrow jeep trail, in search of the perfect panning spot.

That’s where I was:

Look what run is at the end of this month. I was right where they will pass!

No gold, but a beautiful spot to eat my cheese sandwich.  I later found out the correct way to pan for gold, so I probably dumped my fortune back in the stream right here!

Then, returned to Leadville for more coffee and decided I would try to find the secret gold panning creek that Larry and Shirley told me about yesterday; south of Twin Lakes to Granite, right for a mile, south along the powerline for a mile to a parking lot and creek. Guess who was there? Larry and Shirley. 

The photo of Larry and Shirley didn’t turn out. Sorry, Shirley.

Here’s Larry showing me a ring he made out of gold they found.

I met others who were gold searching. Here, Patrick and Robyn are sleuthing with an impressive machine that sure beats panning:

Here’s Steve and Paul. 

Paul is the pro and Steve was along to learn after being prodded by Paul for many years. Paul also showed me some different techniques and some incredible nuggets he found several years ago. They all do this as a hobby. None of them sell their gold!

Here are my instruments:

And here is the gold I found:

Probably won’t quit my day job just yet!     Wait, I don’t have a day job yet!