Mollie Mines

1) Plan Ahead: I say this somewhat loosely because I like to be somewhat spontaneous at times although my spontinaity has at times backfired on me. There's nothing worse than starting a 14 hour drive thinking you can do it without stopping only to get too tired to drive but the only town near you has a convention going on and there are no hotel rooms. I was forced to sleep a few hours in a gas station parking lot which had I had a companion along on the trip would have been fine but traveling solo it left me a bit uneasy. Spontaneous or not, always plan your route. Yes, you can always just jump in your vehicle and punch your destination into Google Maps on your Iphone but there are certain things you should consider before blindly following your phone's directions on a long trip such as road construction, toll roads and especially important to me when pulling my 5th wheel is location and frequency of travel stops. It's not always necessary to book hotel rooms in advance bef...

A couple weeks ago I went to Jarbidge, NV for the weekend. Jarbidge is an unincorporated community in Elko County. It lies on the edge of the Jarbidge Wilderness, approximately 10 miles south of the Idaho/Nevada border. Noted locally for its remoteness, the community is usually accessed by road from Rogerson in Twin Falls County, Idaho. There is an 80-mile-long dirt road to Jarbidge heading north from the Deeth exit of Interstate 80; it is usually open only from late June until October due to snow. The community lies on the West Fork of the Jarbidge River. Gold was discovered near Jarbidge in 1909, making it the site of one of the last gold rushes in the Old West and, incidentally was the site of the last stagecoach robbery in 1916. Its population swelled to near 2000 in 1911, but afterwards began a slow decline when the mining facilities were largely cannibalized for the war effort during WWI. Mining operations ceased completely in 1932, however there is still some mining activity i...

I believe that everyone experiences multiple moments of clarity throughout their lives that determine the path they walk in life. I currently find myself in the midst of a lot of change in my life and keep thinking about those moments of clarity that got me here. Those moment of clarity that I can clearly remember are: 1) Watching my first re-run of Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop as a child and deciding I wanted to be a police officer when I grew up 2) Being in the middle of a sparring match in the police academeny and realizing that perhaps my short stature didn't make a very good match for the career I had chosen 3) Walking down the aisle at my wedding when I was 22 and thinking that I was probably making a big mistake 4) Thinking that the professor of my Introduction to Occupational Safety and Health class at Murray State University, Dr. Fender, was crazy when he started the semester by blaring the 80's song The Safety Dance from his computer before the first class yet being strage...