last friday, kevin got through his first afternoon of shooting at the nathan bedford forrest state park in Eva, Tennessee, and on saturday he was just going to do one more individual shoot in the morning, and then had some team competitions in the afternoon.
here’s kevin and mollie, desperately trying to relax on saturday morning. they served a buffet breakfast at the group lodge, but instead we lolled around as much as possible.
the only shoot kevin did on saturday was the ham shoot. “Ham shoot?” i said. they were competing to win a ham, of course! he didn’t win, and mollie would have been horribly, horribly disappointed because she’s never had ham and i know she would have polished it off in three big gulps.
the first team event was the carbine shoot. there were about five different rounds of shooting, or maybe six.
here’s kevin and part of his team after setting up the white styrofoam cups. can you see them dangling there? nope, the cups were set up in the worst possible place for getting a good view of them. all the other cups set up for the other teams were quite visible, and i don’t know how the 114th managed to shoot them all.
now they’re getting ready…
and see all those cups lined up for the other teams? easy to see.
shooting away…
…and here are the shredded remnants of the cups.
people not shooting were HIGHLY RESTRICTED, so i had to do all my picture and video-taking behind the yellow caution tape. just as i was trying to take a picture, some guy lifted up the tape to get back inside. damn him. i do think this picture is funny, though, because it’s just a bunch of legs, as though the top half of their bodies had been censored.
kevin gets ready for another round.
these were called pigeons, and i don’t know why because they sure look like orange discs to me. these were hanging pigeons, as opposed to the first part of the shoot which was clay pigeons attached to a big sheet of cardboard. they were a lot easier to see than the nearly-invisible white cups.
the blue juice bottles really stood out.
when they were done, there were just a few of the bottles left, empty and dangling.
kevin and bill weedman walk back from that shoot – you can’t really see bill’s cool yellow glasses here, unfortunately. i hope there’s a photo of them somewhere else.
and here they are, lining up for one more part of the shoot.
even though their team was at a distinct disadvantage, position-wise, they still came in third in the event. the next one was smoothbore, and i decided to go for a little hike with mollie. we walked down to kentucky river, and two guys were out there fishing.
there was a rocky beach, and i felt the water – it wasn’t horribly cold, so i could have gone swimming if i’d had a swimming emergency, or i needed to save somebody out there. luckily mollie and i were alone.
it was a gorgeous day and i wanted to sit there a while and relax, but mollie was always eager to press on.
there are seven cabins in the park, and this one is where we’ll be staying next year. being in the popup was fun, but on the first morning kevin and i had driven over to the cabins, and a friendly southern woman was cleaning them and gave us a tour of the inside of one of them – they were huge and fabulous on the inside, with a huge living room, two bedrooms, two baths, a big kitchen, and a big back porch which you can see here.
and this is the view from the cabins…we’re going to stay there with gerrick and janice next year. we booked a cabin because there were only two left. people really like to stay in the cabins. they look really nice, plus they’re very cheap. they also have gas fireplaces.
as mollie and i walked along the road back to the shoot, she suddenly ran after something scurrying in the brush. i looked down, and there was an ARMADILLO! really?! i’d only seen them in texas, and don’t remember seeing them more than once or twice. i stared at the big thing and frantically tried to get my camera out of my pocket while trying to constrain mollie who desperately wanted to EAT THAT ARMADILLO.
by the time i got the camera turned on, he had scurried off. damn. oh well, at least mollie had a whole-new adventure. maybe we’ll see one next time.
we walked back to the shoot, and the team was lined up. there were eight of them on their team for this event.
this time they were shooting big bottles full of what looked like milk, but was probably white-colored water. it was spectacular when they shot them because the water sprayed out all over the place. we didn’t tarry too long at the shoot because mollie HATED the loud noise of the guns. when they went off she got agitated and kept jumping up, pushing my back with her front paws. i took her to the shoots a few times, hoping she’d get used to them, but she hasn’t so far.
when it was over for the day, we had yet another delicious FREEZE-DRIED MEAL, this time, chicken teriyaki. after that there was an awards ceremony and we decided to leave mollie in the camper because she was sleeping nicely. i was nervous about this because she had managed to open the camper door before, and what if she decided to try to go find us in the dark? what if she got lost in the woods?
when we got to the hall, there were quite a few of the guys there. most of them wore ball caps, most of them of the hunting variety. here is jim getting one of his many, many medals. you can see off to his right those guys with their ball caps perched way up on their heads. there was a whole group of them wearing them like that; maybe they belong to some secret society.
it was a little odd, being there amongst all those guys – i whispered to kevin that i wondered what would happen if i suddenly jumped up on the table and started singing my “barack obama for president” song. i was pretty sure i was the only democrat in the room.
here’s kevin with his three team medals. he didn’t win any individual medals, and it seemed that a few guys won most of them, one guy in particular. kevin’s team got third in carbine, as i said, and FIRST in smoothbore! well done, gentlemen.
the whole thing only last a half hour and when we hurried back to the camper mollie was still sleeping. she likes it now, and thinks of it as her second home. here’s kevin with trwo of his medals.
it was a fun day, and in addition to the photos, i shot lots of video. i think i captured a lot of the shooting with the stuff exploding all over the place, but until i get my computer back, i won’t be able to edit and post them. so STAY TUNED…plus there are more photos from the last morning of shooting.
meanwhile, i’m on to HARRY POTTER NUMBER FOUR, and i’m pretty sure i’m not going to get them all read by next week.
ok then, i must go enjoy this beautiful, summer-like day because we’ve almost run out of them for the year. i hope you have a fun-filled veteran’s day, and hey, now i know a veteran! gerrick served in iraq, two times, and last night he was honored at some banquet. he deserved it. today he’s celebrating by going to a b&b with the fair janice.
ok ok ok,
mrs. thursday morning grace.