My Girlfriend Is A Gold Digger

This weekend, QB and I went on a gold mining trip with California Gold Adventures with geologist and gold mining expert, Joshua Vick. You might have seen him on TV before. He's been on both the Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel.

So, the gold site was nearly three hours away in Jamestown, California. We had to get up really early to make it to the site by 10. And, I'm really glad we made the journey. Our guide, Josh, was really a great guy. He was also full of non-stop energy. You can tell that he absolutely loves gold and mining. He didn't only explain to us how to get our gold, but where certain spots are much more likely to have gold, and why.

He explained what types of rocks would be in the soil where gold would likely sit, and also what color the dirt would be in gold-rich areas. He also knew a ton about the history of the miners; he was just full of information. We were there with 6 others, plus Josh. If anyone found a nugget on their own, they could keep it. Everything else was split up evenly.

We all took turns between digging and filling buckets with gold-rich dirt and working the sluice box on the creek. Transporting the buckets from the dig site to the water where the sluice box sat was hard work. Everyone worked hard for an hour or so, and that was when Josh gave everyone some extra incentive. He showed us what the sluice had found up to that point... SIX gold nuggets. An excellent start to our trip. Soon after that, we were all working like mad. We all had gold fever.

I did end up finding what the miners call a clinker. It's not quite big enough to be called a nugget, but big enough that if you put it in a vial and shook it, you'd hear it clinking. I found that piece by panning. Panning is really slow compared to sluicing, but it's fun. By the time we finished, it was already 5pm. We were both exhausted and physically sore from the labor, but it was a great experience.

If anyone is ever interested in doing some gold mining, I highly recommend Joshua Vick's adventure. You won't get rich unless you're really lucky, but I guarantee that you'll learn a lot and probably get a good workout too.

Some of the gold that we all split.


Our share of the gold (not including the clinker I found).