Mississippi River Trip: Black Hills Garnets and No Gold by MVP

The next morning Larisa and I headed to the Black Hills again to take a hike along Battle Creek, one of the places Shari recommended for gold hunting.  The hike takes you along the creek and into a gorge studded with pine and oak trees.  Half a mile in all you can hear are birds and the stream.  The trail opens up into a clearing where a small waterfall forms a pool.  A hiker we met later in the day described the area as a “hippie haven” years ago, when the hippies would come and camp and dive from the rocks into the pool.  I spent a couple of hours panning for gold and mostly found garnets to give Larisa.  She was having an easy time on her own, so I only picked out the biggest garnets after the first couple of pans.  I found no gold, but I didn’t really expect to – mainly I was looking for fun, and I had a lot of it.

Besides, there's gold in other states too.  Now I just need to find something to do with Larisa and I can strike it rich!
Around mid-day the skies darkened and a storm looked like it was rolling in, so Larisa and I sheltered up and waited for it to pass.  A couple of raindrops fell, and we heard lightening in the distance, but nothing ever came of it.  We heeded back to the waterfall and decided to continue our hike.  We only made it a mile or so before the trail died and the ground became impassable, so we stopped for a bit and I panned for gold a little more and we headed back to the car, content with a day spent having fun and relaxing.

On the way to the campground we decided to swing by Mount Rushmore, just to say we did.  I’ve got to admit that I was a little underwhelmed.  In the imagination of my childhood I’d always envisioned this towering thing that dominates the sky and cows you with it grandeur.  In reality it looks quite modest when you see it up close.  We decided that the parking wasn’t worth $11 and just drove by, stopping to snap a few pictures at a pullout.  Then it was back to Fairburn for some evening rock hunting and some sleep.  That night it got cold, down into the thirties cold.