Metal Detecting Online

Had a great weekend last week. Went to North Carolina to go gold diggin with a bunch of people. Best part was that it was Fathers Day weekend and I took my daughter along for 4 days of fun.
It was pretty hot being in the low 90s all days. I had gotten pretty well sunburned the weekend before so my shoulders were peeling pretty good, this weekend would be no different as I got the re-burn
We flew into Charlotte connecting thru LaGuardia which was uneventful and we arrived on time. Off to the rental place, got a Chrysler 300
An hour and a ½ later and we were pulling into the campground where our air conditioned cabin awaited us. Got all unpacked then went to find my friends that were sharing the cabin with us. Sure enough, they were down the river busy trying to find some shiny stuff. Rick in the red hat, his wife Carol bent over and daughter Nikki in the yellow shirt.

Few hours later, we all went out for dinner at a BBQ joint down the street.
Also went to Wally World and went food shopping and bought the additional crap that I couldn't fit in my suitcase.

Next day it was off to work. We had 2 trommels and 2 highbankers working. There would be a crew of 14 on for the morning and 14 on for the afternoon shifts. If you worked the morning on the trommel then on Sunday you would work the afternoon on the highbanker.
First we got a lesson in gold panning. Thats my daughter at the start of the day while she was still clean

Then it was off to work starting with our orientation on how to work the equipment.

Some guys hard at work on the highbankers. These are tough work. We hand shoveled 6 tractor bucket loads of dirt into these suckers. No shade, this is where my reburn came from. You would shovel the dirt into the top, the bigger rocks came down into the bucket, the rest of the finer sand and gravel went into the sluice and then the excess ran off. 1 guy would shovel, 1 empty the bucket and 1 keep the stream flowing removing the excess gravel. Water is flushing thru the whole thing and we were pretty soaked

The trommels were easier to work and you can move a shitload of material thru these. Dirt gets dumped up top, 1 guy washes it down with a hose, the other helps it along with a hoe and pulls out the boulders that won't fit thru. After it goes into a big screening cylinder and separates the smaller stones from the gravel. The stones kick out into a wheel barrow and the rest goes into the sluice.

Here is a shot of the sluice after the water was shut down, look at that purty gold!!

Once we cleaned out the carpet and the additional sand was separated, all that was left was black sand and the gold. This really cool contraption separated the black sand from the gold.

My daughter after a hard 4 hours work. So glad I bought all new clothes for her for this trip :jump

The off times when you weren't on your shift, was spent in the river, sluicing, panning and dredging. In the first pic you can see a familiar face. Alaskan George came down to visit since he was in Tennessee with his family. He was showing me how to hone my skills while panning. He is a wealth of information and I'm so glad he showed up! Thanks Geo

Setting up the dredge in the river

Saturday night we had a hell of a cook out, unfortunately the only time that it chose to rain a bit was right during dinner, but it didn't stop any of us.

After all the gold was separated it was then boiled down to get rid of the mercury.

Then was laid out

Lined up

And split up 27 ways

All the dust was split evenly, then the pickers and the nuggets were separated by size, #1 got the biggest, #2 next etc...
After, they would draw your name out of a hat then you would go draw a number from 1-27 out of a hat, what ever number you drew, that was your share.

After the draw, everyone posed for this pic.

Soon enough it was Monday morning and we were packing up to head back to the airport.
Our flight was delayed leaving Charlotte which meant we would miss our connection in New York To make matters worse, the next flight out of New York was canceled so we were screwed.
Finally left Charlotte and arrived in New York and hour and a ½ late. I went to the monitors and found that our original LGA to BOS flight had also been delayed and we would make it after all!!
Landed in Boston an hour and a ½ late, but we made it home.
One last one of 2 tired puppies on the plane

Some of these pics were mine, others were Rick's and Mountain Man's, thanks guys!