Back to the Gold!

[Laz777]

next week I return home again to my beloved hidy-hole in the western Sierras. I'm going out there to earn my daily bread scratching the earth for the shiny stuff with the bonus of the peace and solitude of the mountains and the rivers as the real gold.

I'm just a scant 600 miles from my destination, a virtual straight shot across the deserts of Utah and Nevada, then into the verdant beauty of the ghost filled hills and mountains of 49er country.
I was born and raised in suburban hell, lived in cities and large places, but it's taken the last few years of my life to discover the country boy in me.

[poolcbp]

laz777 is that a coffee stain on your mustache?

[poolcbp]

Dude do you live in a cabin in the mountains or how do you live? that's badass. i mean do you live in a cave? sorry if i offended you i just think we need more people like you in this violent world.

[SteveK]

With a beardly beard like that, you pretty much have to be in the gold business.

I hope to have a beard like that one day. At the moment mine is childish compared >_<

Sounds like fun, though. I live near Vancouver, and have a cabin out near the rockies... One day I think i'll try gold panning. It seems like such a tranquil thing to do.

[Laz777]

I'm in a city right now, just one week from my hitchhiking trip to the Sierras. I need the serenity badly. not that I can't find it here, it's much easier out there.
a week can go by without seeing another person, the only man-made sounds are from aircraft and helicopters.
no smells of human habitation either. the first thing I notice when coming off the river is the smell of internal combustion. it sometimes gags me after 10 days or so smelling nothing but pine-scented air.
it can be lonely, but I always talk to God out there and hear back from Him in His subtle and mysterious ways.
civilization is overrated. I'm on my computer enough right now, but I'm not nearly as fascinated with technology as I used to be. the way I feel right now, if the world were to suddenly revert to the 17th. century, I would be at home.
it's hard work. 6 hours a day digging in the hot sun wears a body out, especially my semi-old butt. but I sleep soundly and wake with the sunrise and feel stronger with every shovel of gravel I dig, every boulder I move out of the way, every bucket I run through my sluice.
my old legs start limbering up. I'll be in pain the first week in, but by the end of the second week my ankles will be iron. my hands get torn up. gloves hinder my progress digging, so I do without. and I'm a member of the Royal Order of the Purple Finger, with oak leaf clusters, for all the times I've moved a pinched rock and it pinched back.
someday, I'd be more than happy to die in those mountains. not anytime soon, mind you, just after I've gotten all the gold.

[Laz777]

well, the trip begins thursday, but not by my thumb.
just happened to be looking at craigslist rideshare and found someone going my way.
$35 for almost 600 miles is a bargain.
not that I don't want to hitch, but what I really want is to be back in the mountains. it typically takes me 2 days to get across Nevada on 80 and there's been times I've gotten holed up in Fernley waiting for a ride that doesn't want to drop me off in %$&*ing Reno.
but I'll be doing plenty of short run thumbing once I get there. it's too easy to get rides in Nevada County.
I'm going Home.
<Bliss>

[TheWindAndRain]

I'm excited for you and a little bit jealous. There was something about the nights I spent in Nevada that can't be matched anywhere else (although I haven't been through southeastern Oregon yet.) Laying low in any given field of sage brush and seeing more stars in the sky than I knew existed..
Sad thing is I'm too afraid to be arrested or fined if I tried hitching through Nevada again. They have very strict hitching laws.

[Laz777]

I have no fear of hitching through NV, but it has seemed to be more hassle than it was just a couple years ago. I was going east to Utah last year on 50 and had 3 stops by the polizei, none of which resulted in any paperwork.
one sheriff's deputy in Ely told me he could arrest me and would have if this were his old job down in Clark county.

one difference in this trip is that I have a place I want to be, ASAP. I had business to attend to in SLC, that will be done with tomorrow.
if it were just going out on the road to wander, like I've done, I wouldn't have bothered with a rideshare. Nevada is sure pretty at night, far away from the city lights. with a chorus of coyotes to sing me to sleep, how can I go wrong?

[Fruupp]

Enjoy the solitude Laz, I envy you!

Fruupp

[TheWindAndRain]

How is the gold coming? The first solar eclipse in the United States in 18 years will be visible from the area you are in on Sunday. Don't pass up the opportunity!