The directions said to " look at your map, there is a town called Wellsville, about 7 miles south of Salida". That wasn't a problem. I could find that OK. Maybe, kind of anyway. First I took a wrong turn and ended up taking the scenic route through beautiful, downtown, Salida. That wasn't all bad as I had never been there before. It also gave me an opportunity to stop at the 7-11 and pick up a few last minute supplies. The clerk looked out the window and saw my dredge in the back of the truck and that started a 10-minute conversation on gold panning. (I can never pass up an opportunity to recruit new people to gold fever). Finally, off I went again. The directions then said "Turn off of highway 50 at Wellsville and you can only do that by crossing the bridge". The day was beautiful and the weather great. I'm tooling along at 60 miles-per-hour looking for a town called Wellsville. All of a sudden I turned a corner and saw a line of big yellow hands with fingers pointed to the left and saying -----Gold-------Panning-------Days-----. As I locked up all four tires, slid to a stop, almost causing three car wrecks I glanced around wondering, where's the town? Well, at that point there was no town. It was down the road a little further. It's a good thing that the signs were there.

"Follow the road, which curves right, then crosses the railroad track. Shortly after you cross the tracks, the road forks. Go to the right". This caused no problem. Now I'm on a dirt road and not too many choices of turns to make.

"The road will fork again, just stay to the right along the tracks". As I drove along I could look over towards the river. Parked in a field were about twenty trailers and motor homes. That must be the place.

"When the road goes under the railroad (of course there's a bridge) go to the right. The road goes just a few hundred yards, and you will be where we are". Boy, what a turn under the tracks. I don't know how the larger recreational vehicles made the turn under the tracks. The road to the left kind of petered out into a couple of small tracks that my small truck could just about drive through with the bank caving off into the river about thirty feet below. I'm glad that wasn't the direction I had to go.

As I drove into the parking area I was amazed at the number of large vehicles there. It was a miniature city. I later found out that 100 prospectors had signed up and there must have been many more that didn't register. I drove on through the parking area looking for a familiar face. On the far end I found Steve Cychoz and several other GPOR members who had arrived the night before. How they found the place in the dark I'll never know. Finding a empty spot in the cactus, sand., small trees, and sage brush I parked and set up my camp.

After the work of setting up my tent and unloading all of the camping supplies the fun began. The water was about 100 yards away and down a fairly steep hill. (Isn't it always)? Unloading the dredge I began the work of hauling it down to the water. This wasn't too bad a job as there was plenty of help. We helped each other get the big equipment to the water.

At the waters edge I whipped out my latest equipment purchase. A brand new digital thermometer. I like to be able to measure the water temperature. Not because there is a temperature that if it gets below I won't get in it, but mainly for bragging rights. When someone says that they were out dredging in 40 degree water, I can say, "that's nothing. I was in 30 degree water last week". Watching the temperature steadily decreasing I couldn't believe my eyes. It was 50 degrees. It was the 2nd of May and only about 20 miles from the snow line and the water was almost as warm as it would get all summer. Life was good. Life was great.

After getting the dredge set up and the wetsuit on, I laid flat out into the water. Looking around in the clear water I thought "what a great hobby".

While we were there the Mayflies or Caddis Flies hatched out. What a pain they were. The only good thing I can say is at least they didn't bite. They were thick and everywhere. You couldn't breathe with your mouth open or you would inhale them. One time I looked at the dredge float and there must have been several hundred of them on it. A work of sage dredging advice from Steve. "When you set your regulator down, set it in the water". He didn't and when he stuck it into his mouth and inhaled deeply, he inhaled several flies.

One other noteworthy item occurred. Sunday was another beautiful day and everything was going great. I had managed to get the wetsuit, weight belt, hooka setup, hood and swimming mask on smoothly all by myself. I looked like a professional. Someone that really knew what he was doing to the several spectators standing on the road on the other side of the river watching. I had noticed them watching me as I put on the weight belt. Carefully I walked across the slick rocks and stood on the edge of my dredge hole. I glanced over at the people watching, carefully spit in my mask and wiped it around as they always did on the Gold Fever TV show, pulled my mask over my face and launched myself gracefully into the water. Just like a professional. Now that was a show for the spectators. One problem though. I had forgotten to stick my regulator in my mouth and I almost drowned. So much for looking cool.

Now what you would all like to hear about by now after reading all of this is about all of the gold that we found. Me too. To say the trip wasn't productive though wouldn't be true. It was great. Just not gold amount wise. Not what I saw anyway. I heard about a small pea sized nugget being found but I didn't see it. I found very little color even though spending about 8 hours dredging. What a great time though. It was the first big camping trip of the year. Lots of pleasant companions both prospecting and around the campfire in the evening. Will I go back next year? You bet. I'll just prospect out a better place to dredge. Thanks Gold Prospectors of Colorado. I had a great time.