Go Forth! Seek Knowledge! --->

We left Friday morning and slowly made our way down to a town near where Airboss lives, checking into a hotel once we arrived.  I have reconfirmed with myself that I cannot and will not ever live in a small town.  It’s great for some but I can’t stand it.  I can either live in the middle of nowhere….though it would take some time getting used to or I can live in the city but I just can’t do small towns.

Eeesh.

Our adventure began with the hotel room.  I stayed with the DuToit’s daughter in one room while Kim and Connie along with their youngest son stayed in another room.  This was one high class place.  We’re talking 5 stars here.  We discovered that our television didn’t work so we went across the street to the dollar store and bought a deck of mini cards, (they had run out of normal sized cards), and a package of magnetic games to entertain ourselves.  We got back and took photos of the luxurious room:

Looks like your typical hotel room but do not be fooled.  On the walls was some of the finest art made out of yellow stains and other unknown substances.  I then went to explore the state of the art bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain to find a most inviting tub:

I could not wait to take a shower in that! 

We went to the hotel bar and awaited the arrival of Airboss and his wife Elaine so that we could dine together.  While the “grownupsâ€? talked, Wendy and I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and the youngest son quietly entertained himself in his own thoughts and later with a game of pool.  During the course of the conversation, Elaine discovered that the t.v. in the room Wendy and I were staying in didn’t work and insisted that we talk to the front desk.  As I had already had to talk to the front desk to get my money back after their pop machine ate it, I volunteered Wendy for the task.  They returned to the table about 20 minutes later to inform me that the maintenance guy tried to fix the t.v. but could not so we were getting a different room.  We ran upstairs and quickly changed rooms.  Fear not for the tub and walls in that room were just as bad!  We went back down to the bar and then we all headed off to dinner.  Since that was nothing to write home about, I’m not even going to bother describing it. 

After dinner, we went back to the hotel as we were exhausted from such a long car ride and began to get ready to sleep.  I got myself all ready for bed and threw my comforter back to climb into bed and rest my weary bones when I discovered a small blood stain on the underside of the bedspread.  My impression of this place continued to soar.  Kicked the spread to the floor, climbed into bed and we watched the re-run of the opening ceremonies, this time with the commentary not being blocked out by a blaring jukebox.

Since there was no clock in the room, I have absolutely no idea what time it was when we went to sleep but I believe I slept a refreshing 10 minutes before the phone started ringing for our 8 o’clock wake up call to begin our day. 

We got dressed and back into the car to meet up with everyone for a good, down home country style breakfast just down the road.  The food was alright but the restaurant itself was so smoky from the cooking and grease that several of us had to step outside as our eyes were watering and breathing was unpleasant.

After that, we made a few quick stops and then found ourselves out at the homestead belonging to Airboss and his wife.  When I say this place was out in the sticks, I’m not exaggerating:

It was really cool out there.  The loudest noise out there, (until we started shooting, of course), were the bugs.  No traffic.  No loud neighbors.  No booming music from someone’s apartment or car, just pure, simple peace and quiet.  That was nice. 

Almost immediately we got to setting up targets on Airboss’ own personal range:

Yes, those are watermelons.  Airboss also has a pile of bowling pins so we set those up as well and the shooting began.  I shot a double barrel shotgun, (Churchill), at one of the watermelons and blasted it apart:

I also almost blasted my shoulder out of socket as this gun had a little bit too much recoil for my shoulder’s liking and I’ve been scolded with a hellacious bruise.  It was worth it though.  I also shot revolvers, a Glock, a .22, a Browning High Power, and…….an Uzi.  The Uzi was the best!  In celebration of this and because I know some will not believe I did indeed shoot one, I’ve allowed my photo to be taken of me shooting the Uzi and will display it:

You’ll have to excuse the borrowed “hickâ€? hat I’m wearing but it was a necessity as the sun was beating down on us that day and I have very white skin.  In that photo, you may notice just how white I am…..what you may not know is that those pale white arms you see are actually tan.  Yah.  I needed a hat to protect my face.  Anyway, that’s me, shooting an Uzi and it was the most glorious thing in the world.  I miss shooting automatics and can’t wait to shoot one again.

Much, much more shooting was done by the others and there were a few “contestsâ€? along the way.  Here is Jim and Airboss doing rapid fire:

These guys were shooting so fast that I could not get a photo of the both of them firing simultaneously; I would always get at least one of them reaching for their next magazine.  Damn amazing.

Later on Kim, Airboss and Jim shot rifles at extremely tiny targets set out maybe 50 or so yards from the porch of Airboss’ backyard cottage deck.  One would act as spotter, using a scope to let the other know how well they were doing as they fired and these guys did some amazing shooting.  Most of the rifles they were using were way too much gun for me so I did not partake in this exercise.

While they did that, Elaine took us out to drive ATVs:

I drove Elaine’s while she drove Airboss’ with first Wendy on the back and then the DuToit’s youngest son.  Now look.  I drove a three wheeler one time when I was about 14 or so and rammed right into a tree because I had no clue how to drive and have not driven anything like that since.  We were taken out to an open field so that I could get a feel for the ATV and then Elaine took us down the property so we could see the pond.  Ok.  That was pretty easy and fun and I was feeling pretty proud of my ATV driving abilities for the moment.  Then she went crazy and took us over mountains of dead trees and through shrubs and bushes with mean thorns that reached out and sliced my left arm up, small creeks, terrain that made the ATV lean a little too far left for my liking and up hills.  When I made it back to the house alive, I was thankful.  I did enjoy myself and had fun but I think Elaine had more fun because she was fearless yet knew I was not.  The next time she took the youngest son on the back of one while I drove hers again and we stayed on flat road, (Grazi a Dio), where we got chased by dogs and got up to speeds of 25 or so mph.  We turned around in a church parking lot because Elaine was going to show us the grave of a woman who had been a slave at one time and was buried alongside a fence near the church.  Unfortunately, there were people at the church doing things so she decided it was best not to disturb them with the loud vehicles.  I really wanted to see the grave but in the end, it’s probably best I didn’t as I have a horribly wild imagination and would have easily convinced myself that the ghost of the slave woman was coming after us as we sped down the road back to the house.  I got the story and that is good enough.

We returned to the house and after awhile everyone stopped firing and sat on the cottage porch talking about politics, blogging and shooting.  As night time fell, I began to hear more noises out in those woods as well as dogs barking off in the distance and a rooster crowing.  This prompted talk of raccoons and armadillos and perhaps some coyote as being the worst things we might encounter out there.  Hmm.  They obviously don’t have the wild imagination that I do and/or haven’t watched one too many scary movies in their lifetimes.  As everyone was talking, I kept looking around, wondering if any wildlife might make its appearance when I saw a flash of light come out of the forest.  Immediately my throat closed up but I convinced myself that surely I was seeing things and decided against saying anything unless I saw it again.  I saw it again about 10 seconds later.  It was getting closer.  Way uncool!  I pointed and demanded, “What is that!?â€? 

“What is what?�

“That!  That!  THAT!â€? I yelled as the light flashed closer and closer.  It looked like a flashlight…like someone coming out of the woods, towards us and that was so, so not ok with me that I started to get a little freaked.  Everyone looked in the direction I was pointing.  I noticed Airboss looked over most casually, as if he fears absolutely nothing, and then turned back to me with the same casual attitude and said, “Oh that.  That’s just a firefly.â€?

I’ve never seen a firefly in my entire life.  I haven’t even seen them in pictures so you’ll have to excuse me that I didn’t know what it was.  Once I did learn what it was though I thought it was really cool.  Unfortunately, I had worked myself up into one hell of a scare mode and so my head refused to stop swiveling while my eyes peered into the darkness, looking for things that may try to eat me.  Just as I began to calm down, Airboss mentioned mountain lions in the area.  Oh how lovely.  What happened to fuzzy raccoons and passive armadillos being the worst things out there?  (Coyote don’t count because they are skittish and I know they wouldn’t come up to the porch with all of us out there.) Yah, okay, this is when I began to question whether or not I could actually live out in the middle of nowhere, with no lights or civilization around.  Let’s not even talk about my crazy imagination and its desire to invent the ghost of the slave lady from the grave.

We then had steaks from the grill prepared by Jim and went inside the house to eat.  The steaks were delicious and it was one of the rare times that I did not need A-1 Steak Sauce on my cut.  We also had beans….bbq beans maybe they were? And salad and rice.  After dinner we sat around talking about…..politics, religion, blogging and shooting.  During this time I decided to be all brave and go outside for some fresh air.  I decided on the front yard as I thought it looked less scary at night time and closed the door behind me.  My original plan was to wander around the front yard but as soon as the front door closed my mind went back to mountain lions and ghosts.  I stood one half step away from the doorknob the entire time.  I’m no fool.  After I sufficiently worked myself up into a nice scare mode once again, I went back inside where I found everyone getting up and getting ready to get going.  We cleaned up and gathered our things and bid Airboss and his wife a fond farewell.  It was absolutely a fabulous time and if I get to go do it again, I will be an extremely delighted person.

We then drove back to the hotel, staring into the dark woods along the way.  Earlier, Wendy, Linda and I had discussed how much money it would take us to walk out into the woods in Airboss’ backyard.  Linda and Wendy said they wouldn’t even do it for a million dollars.  I said I would.  Well, with stipulations of course.  The stipulations were that I only had to go to the edge of darkness and be allowed to immediately turn around and sprint back to the porch where everyone else was sitting.  However.  As we drove back to the hotel and I was staring into those dark, dark woods, I decided that perhaps a million dollars wasn’t quite enough.  I also wondered how the hell I ever had the guts to do just that very thing when I was in the Army.  I had my scary moments, as I’ve written on here, but I wasn’t petrified to go into the woods like I am now.  I’d have to see and physically touch the million dollars to know what my answer would be.

Got back to the hotel and I was never so happy to see that small town as I was that night.  I was so exhausted that I didn’t care about the disgusting tub or the nasty comforter and crawled into bed after a hot shower and quickly fell asleep.

In the morning we got up and had breakfast with Jim and Linda and then we all headed on to Houston to Collector’s Firearms.  I proceeded to drool once again over my Walther p99 as well as the Kahr PM9 and a carbine that I’m going to get, a stop at the Glocks and last but not least, a Ruger p95 (I think it was).

Wendy got her second gun in two days and then we all headed out to get some lunch.  After lunch we said good-bye to Jim and Linda with a promise to invite them once I’m ready to purchase my Walthar and the carbine…shortly.  Tomorrow I am going to go get my Texas state driver’s license and hope, pray, cross my fingers, think positive that it will show up in the mail in two week’s time.  Then?  Another road trip will ensue.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  We then drove over to my brother’s house where I picked up the hanging clothes my dork ass forgot when I moved and then headed out back to Dallas with a stop here and there along the way.

Now readers, you know I try to do my best for you.  I tried to get a photo of the statue of Sam Houston but it occurred to me that you can probably find that on the internet.  So, instead, although I did focus the camera on the statue, I chose to show you a photo of what it looks like when a car drives by just past the statue:

Isn’t that much more interesting?  (Damn digital cameras and their lag time.)

I also wanted to get you a photo of that field of brown garbage cans but by the time we got to it, it was way too dark.  I’ll just have to try again later.  But know this.  I will get a photo of that damn thing and you will look at it and enjoy it.  Is that understood?

Ok kiddies.  I’m exhausted and need to get some sleep.  As much as I thoroughly enjoyed myself this weekend, it is great to be back.

<--- Here Endeth The Lesson