There’s Nothing Like Finding Gold!

AND WE DID!

Arizona is a place full of rocks and minerals!

Here is a specimen of Fluorite that I found here in Arizona.

But here it is under U-V Light.

It fluoresces!

Gold does not fluoresce but it’s a mineral that likes to shine!

Sweet, sweet man and I belong to a Prospecting Club as well as a Rock Club.

Yuuup… I’m a Prospector!

Prospecting for Gold is not easy. But it is fun!

We get to go out into our amazing desert!

First off sweet, sweet man looks at his maps to find out where our Prospecting Club Claim Posts are located.

Once we find our Prospector’s Club Claim… we can dig!

First off we have to get out our equipment.

A drywasher, a vacuum, buckets, and shovels.

Sweet, sweet man then digs in a certain area. I vaccum up the light sand and dirt in the area.

However, gold is heavy and it will collect in the bottom of the drywasher.

The blower is attached to the drywasher to make it vibrate so that rocks, dirt, sand filter out and gold filters in.

Then after a morning of prospecting the area is put back together again to show respect to the claim and to the land.

Where sweet, sweet man pans for gold in our back yard. Remember the red and gray bins… He pans through all of it to get to the “black sand.”

This is just a small portion of what we found that day.

The larger pieces are called “pickers!”

We have found Gold as big as half the size of my pinkie fingernail.

Why do we do it… you ask?

Cause we have FUN!!  It gets us 4-wheeling into the desert!

Even better yet… at the end of the day we always enjoy one of these!

Have you ever found GOLD?  Do you like to Rock Hound?

Until Next Time  ~Nancy