Best laid plans

The plan was for my brother and me to get an early start today. Our aim was to get a good spot on the firing line at the county range before it go too crowded and the temperature got too warm. The range is deep in the forest on the side of a mountain and there usually isn’t much breeze back there so it can get downright hot quickly. Trying to get a sight picture with sweat running into your eyes isn’t much fun.

That was the plan. The reality was that at 5:30, when Frankie woke me up to drive her to work, our thermometer read 42 and the fog was so thick I could barely see past the hood of the truck. The entire trip to town and back was made at an average speed of 15MPH. By 7:00 dawn had broken and the fog was slowly lifting.

My brother arrived shortly after the sun appeared around 8:30. It was still chilly so we decided to make the run to the top of Big Walker Mountain so that he could get some pictures and the sun would have a chance to clear the ridges on the eastern horizon.

At the top of the mountain we were above the fog but the sun still hadn’t cleared the ridges of the Seven Sisters and pockets of fog were still clinging to the valleys. That white line of fog in front of the distant ridge is just about over our house…….about 10 miles away from where we were standing.

It eventually warmed into the low 60s by the time we got to the range and we had a good time murdering cardboard boxes. Even though we had 2 cameras with us there are no photos. The firing line was already filling up when we got there and we didn’t want to waste time fooling around with cameras while there were people…….armed people….. waiting to take our places on the line when we finished shooting.

We had a good time, David got to see some awesome views, several deer and his first flock of wild turkeys and everybody came off the mountain with all body parts still intact. After taking David back to his motel I got to go home and take a nap while he went shopping with his girlfriend. Better him standing around holding a purse than me!