Luckily, at about that time, I buddied up with a somewhat cantankerous, but very helpful, guy named Rod. He had become a local legend for his ability to consistently find gold.

Sure enough, after hiking a couple miles uphill and hacking through some brush, we found the place just as he had described it.

I saw a big brown hind end of what at first I thought was an elk, about 75 yards away. I was standing behind a large tree and stopped and peeked around the tree to see what it was.

The temptation to enter the dark interiors beckoned to me before the day was finished but I resisted.

Well, the last time I headed out, I decided to go alone. Big mistake. Since I first started my prospecting adventures, I have had both knees and one hip replaced…

Because waiting for spring seemed to be taking forever, my 15-year-old granddaughter Grace and I decided to pan for gold sooner. The thought was…even if we did not find any gold, we would set a new record for absurdity—gold panning in the coldest weather!