Our new Thompson Dry Washer

We finally broke down and bought our own gold dry washer.  Where there isn't water available you use a dry washer to find gold.  After having our lesson from Old Stoney on how to run one we felt confident enough to purchase our own.  The one he had was run by a gas powered blower so you need a generator, gas can and a leaf blower type motor to run the dry washer.  We opted for one that is simpler because we are so limited in storage space.  Ours runs off of a little battery that you can see under the machine.  It operates by blowing air up from the bottom and blowing the dust up and off of the machine while the dirt/gravel runs down over the riffles.  The gold catches in the riffles and after shoveling dirt into the machine for awhile you then do a clean out and pan what is caught in the riffles.  We found one little piece of gold that was big enough to grab with a tweezers and the rest of the specks were so small you had to suck them up into a sniffer bottle to capture them.

A dry washer only works with dry dirt.  Of course, the first day we ran the machine, got it home and cleaned back up it then started to rain.  It rained quite a bit for the desert so now the dirt is too wet and will take a while to dry out enough to run through the machine.  Some diehard people will dig dirt and spread it out on tarps to dry it faster.   We aren't that crazy yet!

Our Winter Spot

We have a palm tree in front of our site albeit a very small one.  We don't have anyone right next to us but that is going to change this week.  Two more workcampers are coming into the park and will be surrounding us.  The park is filling up quickly.  Many more people are coming now that the holidays are over.  Every day rigs are pouring into the park.  Most have terrible stories of fighting cold, snow and slippery roads to get here.  Their rigs look like they have been through some very bad winter storms. 

You can tell the folks that have just gotten here and have come from somewhere up in the frozen north.  They are out in their shorts and short sleeves when its only in the 50's.  They can't understand why the pool is closed and covered when its only 35 degrees in the morning.  Luckily there were only a couple of mornings that cold and now its back to warm weather again.   Now we can all get back to wearing shorts even those of us who have very thin blood.  

Foothills Christmas Light Parade

One thing that is very cool for Christmas in this part of Yuma is the parades.  We had a parade that came right through our park.  People put lights on their jeeps and large 4wheelers and drove through the area going through each RV park.  They must have hooked the lights up to their batteries somehow.  They were very creatively decorated and it looked like the folks in the vehicles were having a blast.  We also had groups of Christmas carolers come around the park spreading Christmas cheer. 

Its been fun to enjoy Christmas in a busy area for a change.  The last several years we've been out in the boondocks -- a very small town in Texas and the wildlife refuge north of Yuma -- where nothing much happened for Christmas.   Our park had a Christmas lights decorating contest.  Four sites won the contest but there were so many great decorations it was hard to pick four.  Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Learning to Drywash for Gold

We met an old gold miner here in Yuma that makes his money by teaching folks how to prospect and gold pan.   His name is Old Stony and he was quite a character.  We decided to take him up on his proposal to teach us how to run a dry washer to find gold.   He took us a little north of Yuma onto some BLM land (public land) where you can prospect for gold.   He showed us where some tailings (old diggings) from an old mine were and showed us how to set up a dry washer by them.  The picture shows the dry washer on top of the pile of dirt that we ran through it.  The motor sat on top of a bucket with a hose running to the dry washer.  The hose blows air through the dry washer and also makes the whole thing vibrate.  The air and vibration push the dirt that you shovel into it down over the riffles -- kind of like a washboard -- and the gold catches in the riffles.   We shoveled dirt into the machine for about a half an hour.  You can see the gold in the pan that we found.  A little bit but it was sure pretty.

Old Stony also went over some pointers on using metal detectors the proper way so that you don't get tired out using it.   He also explained about other metals that you can find and are worth more than gold -- especially meteorites.--   Another find that he told us about is called a fulgerite.  Its where lightening has struck the ground where its sandy and turned the sand into glass.  You have to dig down carefully and what you will find is a formation of obsidian (black glass) that has limbs like a tree.  Some fulgerites that have many limbs and look more tree like can be worth thousands of dollars.    We learned a lot and had a lot of fun and would recommend Old Stony as a good teacher. 

The Potholes

This is a view taken from an area called the Potholes.  It's on the California side of the Colorado River.  The Colorado River is the little bit of blue water in the distance.   Castle Dome is the mountain peak way in the distance.  The Potholes is an area of Bureau of Land Management land that is supposed to be good for finding gold.  You need a dry washer to find gold in the desert.  It works by blowing and vibrating the dirt down over some riffles (looks like an old fashioned wash board) and the gold because its heavy settles in the riffles.   We went to check out the area and we saw lots of evidence of digging and dry washing activity.

There are You Tube videos of guys digging dirt and running it through their various kinds of dry washers in this area.  One group of guys said that they ran 20 - five gallon buckets of dirt and found about a $100 worth of gold.  That's a lot of dirt moving but that's what it takes.

Fall Colors

There is a little fall color in the salt cedar trees -- the yellow/orange color in front of the mountain.   This is the only fall color you see in the desert.  Even our first winter in New Mexico -- the only fall colors we saw were the same kind of salt cedar trees.  The only other fall colors we saw this year was in Utah up at 8000 feet of elevation.  We have a lot of mesquite trees and ironwood trees like this one in the picture in the Yuma area.  They are always green or shed their leaves and never turn any colors. 

Many people in the park are decorating their yards, palm trees and RVs so its starting to look like Christmas.  It took a few years but now I can get in the Christmas spirit looking at decorated palm trees instead of snow covered houses with Christmas lights.   I especially like walking around in the evening looking at all the lights while still wearing shorts.  

Yuma is very nice in the winter but it does have a few downsides.  The water out of the tap is too salty to drink so we have to buy drinking water and water for coffee.  They have water stations all over town where you can fill gallon jugs with reverse osmosis filtered water.  The cost is cheap .50 cents for 5 gallons.  Our park like most parks in Yuma have a water station right in the park for convenience which is nice.   The traffic will continue to get worse through the peak time of January and February when everyone who can comes down.  The stores will also have a hard time keeping the shelves stocked as demand increases so much they just can't keep up.  Oh well - its worth it for the weather.

Winter in Yuma

Sorry I can't download/upload any pictures this week on this post.   We are settled in for the winter here in Yuma, Az.  The weather has been very nice.  Staying in the 70's with only the need to wear pants early in the morning.  It might rain a few drops this week but probably not although sometimes its nice to have the dust washed out of the air. 




The water in Yuma, like many places we travel, is very hard so we bought a small portable water softener.  You just add table salt to it and so far its been working great to soften the water.  Its supposed to save the plumbing in your rig by keeping the pipes from getting corroded and clogged with hard water deposits. 


We are expecting a big influx of winter snowbirds coming down this week.  Many people wait until after Thanksgiving to come south.  The traffic on the roads and in the stores has been steadily increasing and it gets a little scary around here with all the seniors driving that probably shouldn't be anymore.