Hi Travis and welcome to the GPAA Family! Happy to see you here and interacting with the forum which can be a great source of information and inspiration from many of our experienced members. As many will say and you may have seen yourself already, the best piece of advice we can give as far as starting in a new area is to contact one of the local chapters in your area. They will have the best and most up to date information about the surrounding area and are always friendly people eager to help out and get more prospectors out in the field with them.

Looks like the closest chapter would indeed be in Reno and there is also one down in Vegas. Here is a link to the Reno Chapter which will have latest events as well as contact information - http://www.goldprospector...ome/ChapterId/RENONV

Hope this helps and we look forward to seeing you there, gold luck!

Paul

thanks paul, yeah I looked up the reno gpaa, tried to make it to the nugget shoot at rye patch recreation area they had. sadly I had to work.. it will be rough to make it to meetings, being almost 200 miles away from reno. but small steps at a time I guess. thanks for the warm welcome..