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Gold panning in Alaska
In the morning we took a tour of a Gold Dredge (because we had no choice, it was on the way to the airport and our connection back to Anchorage.) Anyway we took a tour of the Gold Dredge where they too washed away tons of mountainsides with hydraulic nozzles to get at the gold. We did “pan” for gold, the tour gives you a bag of dirt seeded with tiny gold flakes. I was all for immediate gratification so we cheerfully panned. Michael was the best at it and gathered up all our gold flakes so we now own a total of $24.00 in solid gold, which is currently worth more that our Zap stock.
The tours we took on this part (and we assume for the rest of the trip) are geared for people who don’t walk or move at all. At the Dredge “tour” we walked about three yards from the bus to the film room. Then another forty yards of careful walking through the actual dredge, then, whew! Many people had to sit again. Fortunately, benches were placed strategically around the park for resting before tackling the arduous hike up a ramp to the dining room. Part of this tour’s appeal was the “real” miners dinner. We ate a noon, which is fortunate since I used up so many calories riding on the bus between breakfast and lunch.
Anyway. We were unceremoniously herded into a long dining hall and served “family style” (eating family style in my family means every man roots around in the refrigerator for something to eat – winner eats all) here it meant you sat where you were told and food was plopped onto the table and you served yourself. We slid down on benches and cast iron pots of meat stew (no it wasn’t moose, a helpful black board told us so) were placed between every four people. Biscuits and ice tea were also served. The glasses for the ice tea was served in mason jars (for that authentic touch) the water here is obviously filled with minerals because the glasses were cloudy, I didn’t doubt for a second they were clean, the groups trouping through here, not only cannot walk, but I’m sure have delicate constitutions and everything would need to be perfectly clean or the buses would no longer stop.
But I ended up sitting across from a prissy older woman who pursed her lips with great distaste at the glass and shook her little head and declared, “This glass is dirty!” It was also never going to be more than half empty, but I didn’t point that out. What I couldn’t resist saying though was “Then don’t drink out of it.” She replied that she certainly wouldn’t and drank her water (the same water used to wash the dishes and make that streaky stuff on the glasses but far be it from me to point that out) out of her thick pottery coffee mug. I drank from my glass just to be Miss Behaved. I’m still alive.
The stew was remarkably good, I can’t speak for the vegetables as I picked them all out, but I liked the meat. And the biscuits were fantastic, light, fluffy, probably made with lard. What the hell, we’re on vacation. We didn’t speak to the couple any more than the conversation with the glass. They didn’t seem to be having a very good time. I was kind of enjoying myself, but I couldn’t come up with anything more to say that would annoy the woman. I tried though.
We also visited the pipeline, not as awful as we think when we read about it in the “lower 48” as we’re called. It’s a pipe. The natives are favorably inclined towards the project for the very good reason that the building of this thing created fantastic wealth for the state and the residents. So they’re happy with it. No leaks or disasters were mentioned on our sanctioned tour. Thomas sat on the bus and listened to his music. We left him there, which is why he’s not in a picture in front of a big pipe. I don’t understand why he wasn’t fascinated.
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