Monday: Just when you thought it was all behind you!

Where to start?

Well…. Slept well last night… Did a lot of dreaming… By coincidence, Jackie, the Big Biker Babe I met that day made a cameo appearance in one of my dreams…. So I’ll let you choose the next line:

1-      “Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase: Dream Big!”…. or

2-      “It’s Good to Have Big Dreams!”

I also thought about something I forgot to tell you about yesterday’s ride. Passing through Seattle… I learned ‘the green’s the greenest green… in Seattle.’

‘Saw a beautiful child, growing up, free and wild!... Full of hopes and full of schemes!.. Full of laughter, full of tears!... Full of dreams to last the years!.... In …Se….A….TTle!’  [I know some of you will get that. ^_^]

This morning, for those of you who have read The Celestine Prophecy… You know that Gate-Keepers come in and out of our life to guide us to a better place, not unlike Mr Loud and Nosy last week who urged me on to Moose Jaw and the biker at a gas station who said to take the 405 as a quick bypass around Seattle’s busy core… In both cases, I benefited from their advice.

Today, I was the gatekeeper for a man at the hotel breakfast table next to me from Missouri who was headed to the Grand Canyon. I strongly advised him to go to the West end of the canyon to see the Indian Glass Floor walk out… not unlike the glass floor at the CN Tower only much higher up and over the canyon…

I know he, too, will appreciate my advice as a gatekeeper.

The weather was unseasonably cold this morning… got warmer as the day went on… Not much of interest was happening…. Until I met Steve at the gas station in Yreka California.

Steve, it seems, had no pressing engagements scheduled for the day and possessed a seemingly uncontrollable need to speak to someone…. In this case…. ME!

Meet Steve….. Or as he likes to be referred to as ‘Miner’ Steve!

                                Miner Steve is showing you a rock with Yreka Gold in it!

Given my height and the fact that I looked down on ol-Stevo…. I think he’d have no trouble being ‘Minor’ Steve as well!

M-Steve saw me taking pics of the gold miner statues in the town roundabout… “Did ya see the real gold in the pan of that prospector?” he asked with enthusiasm..

No I said…looking at my watch to see how far behind I was in my travel…

“Hold out your hand!” he said.….. Reluctantly I did in spite of all the childhood trauma I remember from the game, “Open You’re your mouth and Close your Eyes….!”

He puts a couple stones in my hand and says, “Know what that is?... It’s real gold!”

M-Steve didn’t stop there… He continued to add more [gold?] to my palm collection until I had a pocket full… I’d no doubt have to pay for in gas money to trek along my journey.

M-Steve took me to the rock collection to regale me on the existential differences between Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic peculiarities of the captivating rock family!...

We laughed at those who said they were miners … But Weren’t MINERS!... Ha Ha Ha…

In an attempt to give M-Steve a breather I asked, “How long you been mining?” [Miner-Speak]

7 Years he said… full time!

“How much gold have you found?”

200lbs a month… which equates to 80lbs of gold.

Impressive!... I mused… doing a quick mental calculation in my head [Gold at $1400 per ounce X 16 Ozs to the pound X 80 X 12 X 7 years] to then comparing that to M-Steve’s available real estate between his bicuspids to surmise there was something amiss in his riveting story.

With the new knowledge that if I boil the rocks M-Steve had so generously given me in borax for one or four-teen hours, I’d yield enough gold – the likes of which could only be seen if I was fortunate enough to use the Hubble Telescope as a microscope – I bid M-Steve a fond ado!

30 minutes down the road, the temp dropped 20 degrees, the sky darkened and the friggin rain,  soaked me to the bone…. Sorry DD… The beast isn’t shiny again!

So I checked into a hotel 1 hour north of Sacramento… Will be at my sister’s tomorrow by noon.

Hope you enjoyed today’s entry… Keep in touch!

MB11