Panning in Chicken

June 19, 2014

We are leaving Chicken this morning.  George stayed up till 11 panning and got some good gold. He got up early and went again.  Toto and I slept in a nice cool cabin under a down filled comforter.   It’s a little harder for me to sleep with it light our 24/7.  I could tell George was doing well because you can see a smile while he’s panning plus he came back to the cabin several times to show me his gold.  He said he can see why some of these places hang on to their gold because most people don’t know how to pan and it gets dumped right back into the water.  He was still giving lessons this morning.  Toto and I took a walk around the whole camp and got some great pictures.  When we saw George panning I noticed he had a pair of cheap multi colored reading glasses on.  He forgot his and found this pair in the truck for emergency purposes (mainly for me).  I had some for him but he grabbed the first pair he could find.  He had to get back to see his finds.  I will have to post that picture for your smile for the day. 

We just had a moose encounter on this road from Chicken.  George yelled moose and I looked up and sure enough a huge moose was running down into the valley.  He said he was on a collision course with him but maybe our deer whistles is what made him turn around and run back.  He was big and filled out unlike the one in Canada.  I didn’t get a picture.  It’s like the one that got away eh? 

We got to Palmer, which is just 40 minutes from Anchorage.  We were both exhausted and a little tense after coming through the mountains.  There were so many steep grade and straight drop off we didn’t expect.  We were both thinking this is ok and thank God it wasn’t raining because there were so many rock slide areas.  I honed my back seat driving skills, or so I thought, but George still came down a little fast and threw Toto to the floor as he put on the brakes.  Typical dad.  All he could say is, “I told you to sit down.”  Poor little guy was ok except he hurt his left leg.   Communication is not one of George’s strong points and he is happy to keep it that way.