New Years day nugget!!!

It seems crazy to someone that doesn't know me, but after spending most of Christmas and into New Years at the mine, rather than taking a holiday, I can be a bit much. New Years Eve was, meh, uneventful, but when I woke up there was something more on my mind. We managed to move extremely large boulders out of the way the previous day and didn't have much time to search before we called it quits.

Now, I didn't really know what was in store or if it was just one big waste of time that would turn into a walk of shame in the end, but my intuition said "go for it!" She asked me are you sure? Followed by "You are sure, aren't you." I replied with a smile and a "yep". We rolled up to the mine site and were greeted by our caretaker.

With a puzzled look, he said "It's New Years Day, what are you doing here?". As I pulled my GP3500 out of the bag and started hooking it up, I replied "following my intuition". In a moment I was down in the hole, ground balanced the detector and BAMMMM, she screams. I grabbed the handful of mud it was in and tossed it to my girl and shouted "that's why I'm here!"

She panicked in part that I threw a mud ball at her and in part, she knew it had gold in it. She asked me how I knew. It was literally two minutes from the time we stepped out of the truck until I was throwing a golden mud ball. Our caretaker stood there in shock as she got a bottle of water to wash that chunk of gold off. I climbed out of the hole and got my first look at it.

As she rinsed it off, I realized it was the finest specimen I had ever seen. The earth gave out another beautiful specimen which remains in my collection today. Our caretaker asked if there were more down there, I replied that this was the one I came here for today and he was free to look for anymore. I smiled, she smiled, we drove home realizing it pays off to follow your dreams and intuition.

Have faith in your gut feelings and follow your dreams. You never know what's waiting for you around the corner. The value is in the story and experience as much as it is the nugget. I get excited every time someone asks about that particular nugget because it was just a really awesome experience and I want everyone to have that happen in their life!

New Years Day 2010 on the Devils Nest Mine.