Prospecting the Dry Washes

Hello Family & Friends,
Two posts in 1 day, I am catching up and not feeling so guilty for neglecting my online communication.

We've had a few "hot" days in Colorado (meaning upper mid-80's) and not rain to speak of for at least 5 days -- and not much anticipated for the next week.  We have headed to the dry washes to prospect.  Using a conveyor built type of machine, powered by a "blower" you basically run dirt through the bin along the conveyor built, shaking out the pebbles and keeping the gold.  Anyway that is the concept.  It is maybe more work than prospecting the stream with a sluice, definitely "dustier".

Here's a few pics of the day ---

Usually I am the digger and classifier, but at that moment was feeding the bin.

Brad is much more efficient at loading with Buckets that Mickey digs and classifies.

We've worked a couple of days back to back and my hands felt like lead last night.... The days have been pushing toward hot for Colorado but we anticipate a cool down in the next week.

We are headed to Alamosa for a grocery and Walmart run on Wed. 8/28 and who knows what we will find to do the rest of the week.  The RV park is slower with overnighters and short stays.  Several will depart early in Sept. and we will probably leave a closer to end of month.

Better run, I have chores call me -- we have better phone service and texts, but Internet can be spotty.  I am writing this post in the early afternoon and have pretty good service which tells me the tourist population of South Fork is starting to head back home.

We hope everyone is doing well, and will see you soon in Kansas.

Love, 

Susan and Darrel

Keeping Busy

Hello Family & Friends,
I am been remiss in posting as time is slipping away.  We entertained friends in the last couple of weeks -- Brad's brother, Tom (Darrel's friend, too) came out for a visit and the weather wasn't as cooperative as we would have liked -- a little rain and a few cooler days!  But we did manage to get a couple of panning and prospecting days in -- here's a couple of photos!

Here's Tom, Susan, Darrel and Brad (Mickey always takes the photos) of us metal detecting along the Seitz Creek stream

Tom is panning through a load of material from the bank.

Here's his find from the stream.

While Tom was here we had friends from Kansas, Bud and Kelly, come to South Fork after bringing their daughter to Alamosa to attend college.  We had a nice visit and caught up on their happenings.

It was a fun week with visits and just hanging out --- in the next post we try our hand at drywashing since we've had a few days of sun and no rain.

Miss you all, sending love and blessings to you and yours!

Love,
Susan and Darrel

Colorado Photo Sharing

Hello Family & Friends,
As promised, less chat and more pics.  I am so happy that my camera survived its water dunking.  I am a little hesitant to get it out when I am around water.  I hope that feeling will go away soon!

One of my favorites, blue skies, a little snow cap, and pine trees!

So many wildflowers this year, I found these purples ones and really love the color!

You just step out into the meadows full of blossoms -- white and purple (Go KSU)

Not sure what Darrel is doing but it probably is prospecting in a stream -- I turn my back and there he goes!

We still have lots of flowing water in the creeks, but sometimes not enough to sluice.

Eyes to the sky, we hear thunder and off the mountain you come.  The rain totals for the last couple of weeks have been pretty heavy compared to last year when I think we only had rain 3 or 4 times.

Rolling thunder boomers!

I liked this photo, trees frame the dwindling snow cap -- this is up Park Creek and we are pretty high in elevation from this shot.

Hope you have enjoyed the additional photo page -- Thanks for reading/viewing and we will you all good health and good blessings.

Love, 

Susan & Darrel

Beaver Creek Exploration

Hello Family & Friends,
I noticed it has been over a week since I posted, I compiled some pictures over the last few days and haven't taken time to put them online --- so now is the time. 

NOTE:  We still have Internet issues and today is one of the 1st days I've been able to get online in the afternoon so we'll see if we continue to have luck with Internet access.

I will do this post in two parts since I have lots of stored photos and I try not to have the post be too long.

We have been mushroom hunting again -- Boletes and Chanterelles (something new to add to the mushroom diet!)  If you want to read about Colorado edible mushrooms here's a link to a website with information.  Colorado Wild Edible Mushrooms

This is actually a Bolette and are the easiest to find this year --

You can see that we have a sack of them already found!

Chanterelles seem to grow in clusters and are found at higher elevations.

Chanterelles are just coming up

You have to really look to find them hidden in foliage and near downed trees.

Beaver Lake is full and many fisherman head that way to fish.

With all the snow and rain, you find new growing pine trees -- it is so good to see green!

Snow cap is diminishing each day, it is difficult to find much up there unless you are higher up.

We have been prospecting and having fun in the streams -- the tourist season seems to be winding up so the traffic is mostly on Thursday - Monday early, and the weekdays are less hectic.

Check out the next post for additional photos and less chat 😊 -- we miss you and are enjoying our cooler temps than the Midwest is surviving.  We do have lots of rain but this upcoming week seems to be drying out some.

Sending love and blessings your way,

Susan & Darrel

Camera survived, Yipeee!!

Dear Family & Friends,
Just a quick post because I never know when the Internet will disappear -- the camera is working at least!

After two days of "drying out in Rice", and hoping that it was going to work, we are back in action.  And, yes, I have stopped carrying it by the creek so that it won't drop in again. I figure I was lucky and that the 3rd time would NOT be a charm. I believe the camera is down to 7 lives left (if you can use the cat analogy) -- so I will definitely be taking better care of the remaining 7 😇

Here's a few photos that I took to try it out -- Darrel in his metal detecting gear and of the beautiful scenery we were enjoying that day!

This is one of my favorites that day, I love the tall pine to the right and the mountains to the back!  We are so green this year, and we continue to get the rains late in the afternoon and overnight.

The Internet dropped just as I was finishing so I have to rewrite my closing -- we hope you all are doing well, as we always are sending hugs, kisses and blessings to you!

Love,

Susan & Darrel

When all you can do is Laugh!

Hello Family & Friends,
Well, we had a Monday on Tuesday -- so here's the tale:

Headed up the mountain to prospect and found a beautiful spot (streams are going down so better places to setup the sluice).  We unloaded gear and went into the stream to get it setup, I was trying to dig buckets of dirt so I asked Darrel for the scoop.  He looked at the stream bank and then the leg of the sluice and realized that one scoop had floated off the sluice and was somewhere down the stream!!!

Two weeks ago we lost a snuffer bottle (what you use to suck up the gold from the sluice ripples) -- that, too, had gone down the stream.  We actually stopped at the Rock Doc in Buena Vista on the way home from his brother's to replace that item.

Well if you know Darrel, this irritated him quite well and I thought OH BOY, this is going to be a day -- but finally he saw reason that sometimes these things just happen!!!  So now my turn!!!

As I was exploring the bank for a path back to the truck, I leaned over the water and my camera fell out of my vest pocket smack dab into the water (yes, the one that was deserted on the desert and found, WOW, do you think you could ever put those two words together in one sentence??) -- It was off and inside its case BUT..... so I quickly headed to the truck, popped out the battery and the SD card, wiped off what moisture I could see and left it drying on the seat.

When I got home I put it into a bag of rice and will keep it there for the next 2 days -- so my pictures are once again on hiatus until I figure out if it will still work??  I am hoping it has 9 lives and that I have only used 1 that I recall (lost in the desert) and now dropped in the stream (life 2).   I guess this is where I remind us to LAUGH!  Because, really, what can you do?

So being a glutton for punishment, when I got home I called Verizon and spent 2 1/2 hours of my life I will never get back talking to them about the poor service.  I did get them to credit my account for limited data use and have another repair ticket in about the network issues in the area!

So a couple of days ago, I found a couple of "funnies" to share and since this post is about Laughter I decided to add them (and since I don't have any new pictures to share).

Made you smile, didn't I?  I vote, no, don't tell her 😀

OK, how awesome is this?  Carry a rainbow on your back?

If we all could practice this advice, we would have it made!!!

So, on to a better day and I am hopeful that my camera in rice will be working soon!

Sending love and hugs,

Susan & Darrel

Wrapping up July???

Hello Family & Friends,
This will be a this and that post, catching you up on the last week and into the new week!

We headed out on Monday, July 22 to Darrel's brother Mike in Windsor, CO.  We sang Happy Birthday to Aiden (3 phone calls full) and he was delighted to talk to Great Uncle Mike on his birthday!

On the way up to Windsor, we stopped at the Mattress Insider showroom to look at new mattresses, and I've blogged before, RV mattresses are much to be desired when you have a Tempurpedic mattress and are getting old and creaky.  We purchased a new one to arrive by August 5th (possibly August 2nd) and then on through Denver traffic north to Windsor (between Greely and Fort Collins).

Had a nice visit, spent time just goofing off and shopping, the guys went to the gun range and Johnette and I took walks (when the afternoon showers didn't pop up) and caught us with cousins Dale and Bonnie who did the RV lifestyle, too.

We left on Friday, July 26 and received notice that the mattress was to be delivered on Friday, July 26 -- after losing an hour of my life I won't be back with FedEx, we got it re-routed to Monday, July 29 (today)!!

On the way home we sat on Hwy 285 north of Buena Vista at a car wreck (thankfully it didn't look too serious but some pretty good fender bender damage, one was towed).  We arrived safely in South Fork around 4:00pm and brought the rain with us overnight.

Saturday sang Happy Birthday to my mom and caught up with her on happenings in Kansas.  Sister Shari was hosting a party with sister Carol bringing meatballs.  Sister Linda had visited earlier in the week so we all were up to date!

Sunday we spent catching up and getting the bedroom ready for the new mattress.  We ordered a slightly smaller mattress and needed to cut the bed frame down to get ready for it.  So I managed to squeeze in a walk this afternoon and snapped some pictures to liven up this post!  Enjoy!

New Mattress, it comes squeezed up in a roll and then you release the compression, and stand back for the spring loaded mattress.  We are letting it decompress to full size and then will try it out tonight!

 I have been challenging myself with walking up this really steep grade street call Pintada -- I have provided pictures of the up and the down, and looking out of the Rio Grande National Forest -- I am getting better, I can climb it 2x and my goal is to make it 5x before the end of September.

Pintada Up

Pintada Down, you can see the Rio Grande at the top, inline with the road.

Pintada at the Top, looking to the southwest -- beautiful clouds today!

The Rio Grande has really dropped in level and speed -- it is almost calm today.

You can see the bridge reinforcement without water flowing all around in a rapid.

Looking out to the east, it seems very calm vs. the first week we arrived in June.

New walking shoes -- It was time to break out a new pair.

One last thing, I have to brag a little, I earned my 20,000 steps in 1 day and my Sahara badges for the distance of walking the Sahara desert mileage (2,983 miles) -- my FitBit and I are partners in keeping me exercising!

Better run, I've this & that'd you long enough.  We are wrapping up July and hoping our cell reception and phone issues get better.  This weekend is Rhythms on the Rio (music festival) so thinking it will be busy still.

Love to you all, sending blessing and good health,

Susan & Darrel