Sept. 11th. Saturday - Panning for Gold

Wow was it chilly this morning.  Thirty nine degrees and that is about as cold as we've had it.....and the truck even started.  Now that is something to "cheer" about.  If it will only start when it's been pulling the 5th wheel.

We have our lunches packed, warm clothes both on and packed, sunglasses (cuz the sun is shinning yea!!!) and I have my camera.  We are ready and waiting.  We have the fireplace on, our little heater on, and still we are not overly warm.

I forgot to mention in the last post but when we stopped for lunch in Cut Bank, MT I was talking to the cashier and he told me that he used to live about eight miles out of town.  Now there is nothing even on highway 2 that far out but out on those dirt roads is really far out.  Anyway he was saying when he went to school there were six kids in his class.  Two of them were his brother and sister.  I'm thinking this was a blended class.  Can you imagine.  Cut Bank only has 2,500 people and it is in or near the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.  I asked how do they keep fuel in their cars.  He just looked at me and said well all of the folks who live out have 300 gallon tanks that they have filled.  Duh I should have known that.
I love to chat with the locals.  By the way we had hot dogs (service station) and they were excellent and so was the coffee.

Around 8:30am Joe and Kay arrived to pick us up for our trip to Lilly where the gold panning was taking place. The drive there was about an hour and was absolutely beautiful.

Try Driving around this

My Barn Shot of the Day

Once we turned off highway 93 onto this two track dirt road we still had12 miles to go before we arrived at the site. When we arrived there were many trucks, four wheelers, trailers, tents, you name it and it was there. We noticed right away that all the hoods were up on all the vehicles. We were told it is so the 'pack rats' won't climb in the warm engine and eat the wires. True story as I guess they do that. So Joe opened the hood of his truck also, after all we had to look like we knew what we were doing.

Joe's Truck

The club that was there had quite a few members who panned for gold at least once a month in the summer time.  In fact the club has bought five claims which covers many acres of land.  I thought panning for gold was shoveling dirt in a pan and looking for gold.  Boy was I wrong!

The first thing that takes place is a group of workers has to climb to where the claim is and with machinery dig a section of material out. Another group shovels the load of material into a machine that looks something like a cannon. This machine goes around and around to get rid of all the large stones and other unwanted material.

This was on the dig site

What is left is then put in flat containers and brought down to the panning site. Here men/women take scoops of this material and place it into a screen sifter.

He's Putting the material in the sifter

Material in the container from the dig site

All the large stones stay on top and the remaining material falls into the panning container. They check the sifter to make sure no large pieces of gold are in there. Then they take this gold panning pan and start swirling water in it.

There's an art to swirling this

Me swirling

Kay swirling

Gold is 19 times heavier than water and the black material that is in the pan is 17 times heavier than water. 

Not Easy

So those two materials stay in the bottom of the pan until last.  The next job is sifting the black material away from the gold.  Once that is completed you have GOLD. 

Yellow = Gold

There's Gold in there - Rick, Joe, Jim

We left there around 4:00pm and headed back to Kalispell much more informed about panning for gold.  The drive back was just as gorgeous as the drive there.

View from Kay's sons home

Wow

Ya know I could live here

Tomorrow I know for sure Jim and Joe will be watching football.  Yea for Michigan's win over Notre Dame.  I think Kay and I are going off on our own to shop, chat, and have lunch.

Kay and Joe

Just so you know, we were not able to keep any gold, as all the club members share in the findings.  Joe and Kay are now members and soon will be in rubber boots with pans swirling for gold.