I'm dying for a taste of gold

Wish me luck. I'm about to go out into the field and stake some gold claims. Why? I'm a fool. See, I got this idea about a week ago that it wasn't such a good idea to sit in front of my computer all day, that instead, I should go outside and work. I haven't seen my dad this worried since I went off on my bike tour. And he got me the job after all.

It's gonna be 110 degrees or something, though, and, after all, it's only been one month exactly since he fell off a cliff while staking his own gold claims somewhere out in the desert near where I'll be.

"I survived a month, huh?" says Daddy. "That's a good sign, right?"

It's not like he minded being in the hospital all that much. He had cute blond ladies teaching him how to breathe again. But still, he worries about me.

He's handing me all the gear that he normally carries, the heavy cotton long-sleeved shirt that kept him from getting melanoma sooner than he actually did, the oxygen tubing from his mishap that he says might be helpful for binding stakes, and with much ceremony, he gave me a Brunton lesson. Turns out a Brunton (which for much of my childhood held much mystique as a tool of my daddy's extractive trade) is just a compass. Only took about five minutes.