My morning started out great with a phone conversation with Jamey.  However, without KW at work today, I had to handle one lunch hour without any help and I made plenty of mistakes today.

It seems like I learn something new from our campers every day.  Today a gold miner came in.  He goes up to Chicken, AK every summer to dredge for gold.  He brought in two pill bottles and showed us the contents sitting in the bottom.  One was very fine gold dust, about an ounce which is worth $1000.  The other was somewhat larger grains and four small nuggets.  Here’s how he dredges for gold:  He wears a wet suit through which he runs warm water from his machine to stay warm in the frigid water.  His machine is like a big vacuum.  He sucks clay with gold in it up from the bottom of a stream.  Then it goes through something where the water drops the heavier gold and sand and flushes the clay out.  He said in a good summer of hard work he can earn about $300,000 to $500,000 or more.  Then there are summers where he barely covers expenses.  I had never heard of dredging for gold before and was fascinated to hear how it works!

Today I registered a family that is here from Germany.  It seems every day we get a different nationality in.

My last customer of the day thanked me in front of the boss for being so welcoming and she said I have a nice smile.  After all the mistakes I made today, that was certainly good to hear and particularly to have my boss hear!  I must say he has been very patient with me and he works with me to learn how to do things better.  I asked him today if he thinks his mother will like me, and he said yes.  He told me not to worry.  He said they have more Workampers this year than they’ve ever had before, so I think they are just happy to have us there.  I hope I can be more help than hindrance!