Gold Panning And The Great Outdoors
Gold panning. Our new hobby. I don’t see any articles on this subject. You can find oodles of websites about gold prospecting. You’d be surprised at all the places you can find gold.
Back at the beginning of summer, my husband and I were spending our weekend at home as usual. We’re usually complaining how there’s not a lot to do for people our ages. While watching tv, flipping through the stations, trying to find something to watch, (you all know what I’m talking about), we came across the ‘cash and treasures’ show. My husband and I were rock collectors as children, so this greatly interested us. I looked at my husband and said, ‘hey, we should do that’! So we did something we never do, something spontaneous; that night after my husband got off work, we headed down to Dahlonega, Georgia.
After arriving at our destination, we watched a video on how to gold pan, then we purchased a bucket of sand and gave it a try. You can choose different amounts of sand to pan. Buy it by the pan, or bag, or bucket. There’s something that happens when you look down in the pan, and you see the little flakes and tiny nuggets. It’s a feeling that, that. Well, I can’t explain it! I can only say, we both got ‘the fever’!
There are also, as we found in our short lived travels, (due to the drought), that there are places where you can not only pan for gold, but also look for gemstones. For a fee of around $5.00, you can buy a bucket of rocks.”ROCKS”! Not just any rocks. The rocks in these buckets are gemstones. You can stand or sit at a trough called a ‘sluice’. Your given a wooden box with a screen in the bottom, you dump your rocks in, and just wash off the dirt. It’s called, ‘gem rubbin’. There are people standing right there that tell you what gemstones you have found. For a fee they will cut, clean, and even place your gemstone’s in a setting.
However, not all the gemstones will be of good quality. Just thought this is something you should know.
My husband and I are champin at the bit to get back out there. We love traveling, and have met lots of nice people. And the fresh air, and beautiful scenery just makes it even more enjoyable. Yeah, it’s takes some effort, but the exercise is good for ya. But most of all: “We wanna find the gold!” We got the fever!
