The downside of rural life

Sorry we haven't been posting much lately, we've taken some time out from the trails to do some well-procrastinated work here at home, but, hopefully, we'll hit the trails again soon, we're both going through trail withdrawal.
There's a downside to living in the boondocks, this morning's events showed it all to clearly. We couldn't sleep, so at around 2:30 AM we were sitting in the den in front of a cozy fire, having our morning coffee when suddenly, we were shaken by a loud boom, minutes later a second, even louder BOOM rattled the entire house. At first, we thought it was just an electrical transformer until we looked outside and saw the mobile home down the road, fully engulfed in flames. We tried to phone 911, the line was busy, probably from other people reporting the same fire. Ralph ran down the road to see if there was anyone who needed help, but by the time he got there, the place was obviously a total loss. The volunteer fire department took at least 45 minutes to arrive on the scene and when they did finally arrive, two more houses were burning. The pumper truck ran out of water quickly, when another pumper truck arrived, the pump wasn't working. Finally enough tanker trucks arrived, but by the time they were able to put some more water on the multi fires, it was too late, all three places were a total loss. From what we've been told, the fire was started by an electric heater igniting an elderly man's oxygen. The first boom was a small portable tank, the second boom, was a large oxygen tank. Luckily, nobody was injured, but it looks like the elderly man's dog was killed in the fire. Very sad. The only house that was occupied at the time was the one belonging to the elderly man, the others were vacation, weekend homes.
We take our chances to live the rural "quiet life", events like these tend to show us just how risky the chances can be, but all in all, people living in the peace and solitude of life in the boondocks, wouldn't change a thing, us included.

Fully engulfed

Tankers not working

The fire's last gasp

Total devistation

This is why we take the risks

FR 225 to mines

Great weather, although again, it's a bit hot for March, 82º as I write this, hopefully, our Winter isn't over yet.
This morning we rode up a dry-wash not far from home. It's an interesting area, old corrals and several old mines. We've checked out one of the mines on a previous visit, it's flooded and impassable. On this trip we parked in a different spot since there were cattle near the gate, we decided not to drive through and chance letting them out. After looking around a bit, we headed back to the Jeep and happened to glance over at a nearby hillside. We noticed a couple of more mine adits that we hadn't seen on previous visits. We weren't prepared today to check them out, but we'll return in the near future prepared with hiking boots (snakes are probably waking up since the temperatures have been so high) and flashlights. This particular area was known for gold mining, with some fairly rich strikes being claimed in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Not to worry, if we strike it rich, we'll post it in our Journal...one last time.


We noticed this mine and tailings on a hillside as
we were leaving

An old windmill still pumping water

at this corral

This mine is flooded, no entry here

This bunker was once used to store the

explosives used in mining

The explosives bunker built into the hillside