Gold Conquistadors

The Spanish arrived shortly after Columbus to exploit America for its precious metals and were very successful. Eventually, I hope to purchase a book/map of these old routes and related mine explorations.

The plan is to map these old routes along with old stagecoach routes for metal detecting. I found a nice video, if interested, that explains this very well. It also shows some basalt gold-bearing rock that the Spaniards were hunting.

The interesting thing is that these pockets are small and not mapped by the USGS. In hard rock mining, most people focus on quartz with gold veins, but gold is found in numerous hard rocks.

Lately, I have been pondering how my life would have turned out with different life choices. One obvious choice for me would be to pursue these activities when I was thirty and bulletproof. I think I would have worked in my twenties and then taken two years to just travel and explore.