Ya, it's my favorite nugget. It's a funny story on our trip to Italian Bar. We were there for a week and we camped with some interesting folks. A local prospector who runs a hot dog stand in the old Columbia downtown area, he owns a claim half way down the Italian Bar road, with a long walk down. He hung out at our camp with us and two other guys...
Drunken Al & Homeless Al. So drunken Al could really drink, he had money, a new truck, and a girlfriend who brought him Steaks & Beer about once a week, and then camped with him that night...What a nice girlfriend....
And Homeless Al lived under the bridge at the bottom where there's a road to the right that goes to a lode mine (which was on E-bay recently) Homeless Al had a beat up old 4x4, he never changed his clothes for an entire week, and he showed up every night with a bottle of Jack Daniels. So we had a fun party & some good BBQ, music and all that.
Drunken Al is a happy camper, he's retired & does whatever he wants. He had the small two foot sluice & managed to get at least one bucket of paydirt into the sluice box everyday. I Can't blame him for taking it easy, it was 102* in the shade for a couple days.
I don't know what homeless Al did all day, he just drove up at cocktail & dinner hour every night...All in all, it was a fun trip.