PiruMiningWeekend

Tad Tempe, his wife Elise, their son Cris, their daughter Jenny and her friend Jessica Pendergass.
Kathy Rodriguez, her son Steven and her daughter Lisa.
Tom Hope, his wife Shelly, their three sons, Alex, Adam and Garrett.
Doug his wife Michelle, their two daughters, Devin and Cory.
Mike's work buddy Jerry and his son.
A total of 24 counting myself, Bill Hallock.

     Mike and I had been to this spot before. We knew where the gold was and what we would need to get it. So we took a power hammer drill and a self contained sluice box. Our spot was next to a old mine in some ancient river bed about 1/8 of a mile above the river
     When we arrived at our spot someone was already camping there. We didn't want to make waves so we decided to set up the sluice and let the kids do some mining. Mike ran the sluice and showed the kids where to dig. Then he would send them up to me at the panning station that I had set up. Here I would add a little salt (gold that Mike had bought) to their pan and help them pan it out. If only you could of seen their faces when that gold appeared in their pans.
     After all of the kids had their bottles of gold someone wanted to go shooting. So everyone that had brought gun got them out and we all walked over to a safe place facing a hillside. Everyone was having fun shooting can when we heard over a loud speaker, "Everyone stop shooting, put your weapons down and walk towards us". We turned to see two trucks a Federal Ranger and a State Ranger and another State Ranger that was riding a dirt bike. He had gotten off of his dirt bike and had taken shelter behind the door of one of the trucks. He had his shotgun out and ready. He didn't know what he was up against.