Category:

Westward The Wagons

10/1/2013

I have surely been remiss in updating the Expedition Blog so...I'll try and remember everything since the last time I posted.

Right after Miss Paula's last post in August, the Expedition loaded the Nugget Buggy and lit out for the great state of Alabama for a visit to Camp Firefly. It gave me a chance to catch up with the crew there, and do a little prospecting until it was time to return to Tennessee for the opening of dredging season at Doc Rogers. After adding some Alabama gold and garnets to our collection of PLR's, the Buggy was re-packed and meandered north to Coker Creek.

Once again camped in the Tennessee Mountains with no signal for any type of electronic device and too busy dredging to write, I was resigned to spending the winter in the southeast. Thoughts of Oregon and California were filed under Oro Expedition '14 as I settled into collecting my grubstake for the new year.

Miss Paula continued working with the Oro Expeditions' crowd funding site at GoFundMe, as well seeking out sponsors for Oro Expeditions And Then Some... on KDCL Media.

Then Providence stepped in, and "the rest", as they say, "is history."

While in Coker Creek, I made the acquaintance of Mike Payne of PoBoy Dredge. We talked...and talked...and talked some more, and developed a marvelous friendship. Mike felt that it was time to take PoBoy Dredge to the next level. He purchased an ad in the September/October edition of Gold Prospectors Magazine from GPAA, and became a contributor and sponsor of Oro Expeditions--allowing us to step up to the next level. Suddenly Oregon didn't seem so far away.

Once again I packed the Nugget Buggy and headed north to Interstate 70 where I proceeded west. Stopping for gas, food, and catnaps. I was soon in Denver, Colorado, where I stopped for some real sleep and to meet in person for the first time since we met three years ago, our beautiful heart sister, Dia Nunez of The H20 Network. I also did a little prospecting at the GPAA claim outside Idaho Springs, Colorado, just to say I had some Colorado gold in the sniffer bottle, then it was WESTWARD HO! once again.

There was a beautiful sunrise over Flaming Gorge in Utah before we struck out across Wyoming to meet up with Interstate 80 through Salt Lake City, Utah and Nevada before catching the two lane into Klamath Falls and on into Grant's Pass, Oregon.

In Grant's Pass, the first stop was at the Armadillo Mining Shop. We met a wonderful lady named Samantha, who has been very helpful in giving us the 411 on the contacts we'd carried with us since Coker Creek. THANKS JOHN & NICKIE! The Expedition met some fellow miners on the Illinois River, who have been generous in sharing their knowledge.

So here we are ready to settle in until it's too cold to play in the river. I had to wait out another rain storm, but we're doing a little hard rock mining, found some mercury gold, and generally learning the ropes for gold mining in the great northwest.

Once it gets too cold in Oregon...another friend moved to northern California last year sooooo....we'll see what happens next.

Oh...Miss Paula's been busy too.

Check out some of mine and her pictures.

MORE LATER!...Oro