Today I finally joined Mike at the river dredging. While he was under water for a couple hours, I crevassed - scooped and swept sand and dirt from the sides of rocks and underneath where the water had run over them during a flood. Then I took the bucket of dirt and ran it through a sluice Mike had set up on the river's edge and let the water wash through the dirt. When we cleaned up later, there were some bitzy specs of gold so I'll probably keep scooping dirt in the same spot.
As Mike was closing up for the day, I noticed a visitor we had across the river -- a large brown bear, grazing on early berries. It was across the river on a ledge and didn't pay us any attention but we kept an eye on it since bears can swim! It may have been the mama of the little one Mike saw earlier in the month, or just a loner out foraging. The picture up top is of the bear across the river..the one below is when I zoomed in the print so you could see the bear. And the one of the guy in the wet suit is Mike by his dredge! It's a lot of heavy, hard work to set up and take down the dredge equipment, lug a bucket of concentrate up the hill along with a wet wet suit and gear. Mike gets quite a workout! I did laundry afterwards and enjoyed resting on the laundry room couch.
I got a cookbook today from RV-Dreams, a blog by a couple that is full-timing across the U.S. Lots of good sounding eats to try out, though we're still working on the 10 lbs. of beef brisket.
It seems to me that there is still a pecking order, even here in the boondocks, at least among RVers. Those with old beat up rigs or small ones (like ours) are below those with the monster drivable diesel buses, or Class A's. It's funny that trailer folk should divide up into cliques. Guess it's just human nature.
It's been 2 months that we've been here now and we plan on staying for a while yet. I liked it out on the river, surrounded by pines and fresh air ...but not bears!
