Wind With A Side Of Shooting

This past weekend myself, Al and a few of his work buddies made the drive out to the shooting range. Our plan was to camp out Friday night and everyone else heading out first thing Saturday morning. Al and I left Friday afternoon and joined everyone else on the freeway trying to start the weekend. The drive was slow as we passed 2 car accidents and 1 car fire,  which gave us lots of time to talk about hunting this year, life, family and crack a few jokes.  As we got closer to the range I could feel the wind pulling and pushing the truck and I was not even driving. With the direction of the wind we were hoping that the one side of the canyon would block the wind. Once we arrived and got out of the truck and the wind hit us immediately. It was blowing a good 20-30 mph. Instead of shooting, we decide to hike out to a few old mines and do some exploring of the area.

We headed out on our adventure in the general direction of the mines with a ideal of the location but not completely sure. With the recent rains the desert wild flowers were in full bloom. The colors were bright, beautiful and everywhere. It was great to see the desert so alive. While we walked we looked for brass and other cool items. It makes me sad to see how much trash in the middle of nowhere used for target practice and left behind. When we shoot we bring a lot of water bottles and milk jugs to shoot at, but we will take breaks and clean up all shot up bottles and other targets.

 I came around a small hill and saw a tailing pile off in the distance. We had found the mine. We climbed the dirt road and walked right to the first mine. It amazes me that people were able to dig these mines by hand using just pure muscle and hand tools. The first mine seemed to be about 60 foot deep almost vertical. Then next mine was at a slight angle dropping about 30-40 feet then it looked to branch out from there. There were a few mines that where caved. The final mine was cut straight into the hillside. I explored hoping to find something cool but came up with just some brass. As I was looking out at the surrounding hills and noticed a white object in the distance. My MINOX binoculars are in the shop getting repaired so I asked Al to take a look and he was able to see 3 more targets in the distance. One hanging gong, a bowling pin and a heavy duty truck rim.Who ever had got the truck rim to where it was  put in some work to get it there.

With the sun setting we headed back to set up camp and get dinner going for the night. Al brought 3 different flavors of venison and all 3 where delicious. We cooked them over the open camp fire with some corn and just enjoyed the night. With the wind was still blowing and hopes of it calming down before morning. It was off to the tent that held up great in the winds.

In the morning we got up cleaned up camp and halfway loaded the truck. About 7:30 the rest of the group showed up. The wind picked up steadily as the sun rose with gusts up to 50 mph. Shooting long range was out for the day. We set up targets and shot for a few hours. With the wind pushing you it was hard for me to stay on target. I packed my stuff up by 10:30-11am and everyone else was not to far behind me. WE made it back in great time and wa able to play some Bocce Ball with my neighbors. Spending time away from the power grid it is tough to keep electronic devises such as phones and cameras charged. I will have review on a external battery pack I have been using coming up. It was a great shooting with friends being out in the middle of nowhere.