These Boots Were Made For Walking
Once upon a time, I made my living as a prospector … though that’s not the word used today … probably because I didn’t have a burro to follow me. Anyway, we had spent a week or so wandering around the Nevada/Utah border poking around rocks of various types.
I’ve lots of prospecting experience and have become extremely competent in finding leaverite ore …
Woke up one night when the fire was dying down and caught the firelight reflecting off my boots. Grabbed my camera and took a picture.
This here’s the result.
My feet are getting itchy again – may be heading to the back country pretty soon.
“Can you hear me now?“
Nope!
You actually made a living prospecting? How long ago?
Gonna have to look up leaverite ore…
You really need to give more info about this time in your life.
How long would you be gone?
Yes I did … but it doesn’t mean what you may think it means. But I have the proper hammer 🙂
Off and on between mid-80s and mid-00s
Info on my life: Just assume I can occasionally make boring sound interesting.
Have at least two trips planned. Not sure how long I’ll be gone – couple days for one, couple weeks for the other. I’ll rack and stack some posts for the interim.
You are not boring.
ok I looked it up. ha ha. Talk about gullible I am. 🙂
I’ve had that same sorta feeling for some time now.
Maybe when it cools down some….say, Oct or so…
Boots, eh?
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For 19+ years in a row I have a pair of black felt Cabella’s slip on boots that sit next to the fridge and every morning I pull them on and trudge out here to my office about 6am no matter the weather.
This morning about 6:15am I’m sitting here at my desk in the dark sippin’ my mud and thinkin’ about stuff and suddenly something sharp jabbed the inside of my left calve about halfway up. WTF?
I turned on a light and looked and I almost passed out.
Sitting on the top edge of my boot, reaching across the open chasm to my calf was the prehistoric monster in the pik below. Holy F!!!
I grabbed a shop rag laying over there and grabbed that creature.
Then I dropped it into a small box and closed it up.
I went back to sippin my mud but I didn’t turn the lights back off. No sirree.
Looked it up and it’s a Scarab beetle. Yeah, one of THOSE things. Egypt, Pyramids, Cleopatra, Indiana Jones, yadda yadda. I have never seen one before in my entire life. And look at that size!!!
My wife was born and raised here in IN and she never seen one before.
If that thing touched your bare assed leg would it have terrified you?
Something I noted to myself back in 2015…..
I don’t remember the brand of hunting boots I was wearing that year, but knowing myself, they were probably some barely-passing bargain-basement boot that unsurprisingly, failed at an inconvenient time.
That year I used the lesson of that hunting trip to upgrade my boots to a set of Danner boots that are just about the most comfortable boot/shoe I’ve ever worn. They’re good enough that after subsequent hunting trips, I’ve made a point of taking care of them with some Huberd’s Shoe Grease. The stuff stinks like I’ve spent the day chip-sealing an asphalt road (which is why I apply it immediately after my hunting trips and not before), but the boots look great.
Nice looking picture. And just east of me in the Superstition Mountains there are people who make a living prospecting for gold. Prolly not a great living, but I’m sure that they have their reasons for being out there. FWIW, gold closed today at $3388 an ounce.
I have been taught to always ALWAYS look in to your shoes before putting them on!
I found a pair of very lightly used boots at a gun show. 3/4 ankle high. Danner. Tongue says combat hiker. I paid the gal $30 and they fit great. Looks them up later and they are $300 boots. Good for me. Buddy of mine at the gun range wears the same boot. He wore them in Afghanistan. If I ever wear these out, I’d pay full price for a new pair.