"Happiness is only real when shared"

I always thougt that rednecks are some kind of indian tribe's name before I visited U.S. Though there are still rather big indian population in Idaho state, but quickly I found out rednecks as white as myself.

Brandon was on of them and the black sheep at the same time. He had a big hundred years old truck, but no driver's licence nor insurance. He never had a watch or a clock.Just somehow knew what the time was. But who cares about the time in the mountains - it's mountain time!

The life in the in Idaho mountains is just different. It's slow, people are incredibly warm and the weather is just about perfect. The towns in Idaho wilderness are consisting of a couple of hundreds inhabitats, and I had to drive 1,5 hour just to get groceries.

We didn't have much free time because of work at. We worked together. One day as I was sitting on the porch staring at the peaks of the Sawtooth mountains, as they were filled with clouds like toothpaste I heard that old black pick up truck entering my temporary home backyard. (We don't have so much of them back in Europe). Let's go diggin'! - Brandon shouted excitedely.

I knew there was gold in somewhere in Alaska. I read a lot about gold rush in the books of Jack London, but never knew that there was a lot of it all over the place in the West. I thougt those things only happen on TV these days and it was like watching National Geographics, but for real!

Brandon was an actual gold - seeker.Though he wasn't making a living from this hobby, he was pretty good at it and knew a lot about gold.

But it's not an easy job to do. I noticed it the first day. Despite the fact that the temperature was over 40°C, the temperature of water was about freezing cold.

As much as cold as Brandon's voice when he started telling me a story about him and his family. He was a kid, who grew up in fosters' home. His father was a criminal and his mother a drug addict. That kid spent his teenage years in jail. In the mountains you have to be well prepared - you must be strong, know your limits and must respect the nature. That's what Brandon was like. He was a free spirit, strong and well equiped - everything he might ever needed camping could be find in the back of his truck.

We spent a couple of hours digging banks of the mountain river and found some fine gold. I felt like time machine took me to previous century. It built a bridge between past and nowadays for me. "Go West, young man!" - voices from the movies jingled in my head.