In August 2011, Carlene and I drove to Boise, Idaho to start a new phase of our Great Outdoors Net business. We met with Gerry McMullen and bought our first top of the line metal detector to begin our journey as Gold Prospectors. Since I (John) have always enjoyed searching for coins since we came back for a tour of duty in Berlin, Germany. I bought a Radio Shack metal dectors and hit the local stomping grounds in San Antonio, Texas. Since the price of Gold has gone up and I had a little extra time on my hands, I got the gold bug.

Gerry offered a three day training course on our new detector, a brand new Minelabs GPX-5000. The training was set for September 9th thru the 11th at Rye Patch, Nevada. We loaded up on the 8th and had a nice long drive from Rexburg, Idaho to Rye Patch. This area is known somewhat for the surface gold mining and is a beautiful primitive area. We camped in our van and enjoyed the opportunity to be in The Great Outdoors with a very nice group of folks with the same Golden interests.