The shoot, and the feed.

I forgot to tell ya, my buddy Jim, who went to the game with us, has just returned from workin' in Pennsylvania for a few years. I called him last week, when he was gettin' ready to drive home and told him I was down to two lonely bottles of Yuengling in the fridge.



So, he kindly trucked home a case of the Traditional Lager and a twelve pack of the Black & Tans. I picked them up Thursday and drove home with them, so I should be good to go till this summers road trip. Pfew!



After a short trip to Wal Mart and the time it took to set up the air bed, we all relaxed around the house Thursday night. Denise and Bryce watched TV while I started workin' on the football pictures. Check out that nice air bed there, tucked up against the couch. It's the one we use when we go campin'. Cozy, with flannel sheets and an old down comforter.

The next mornin', while Denise slept in, Bryce and I took a trip up to Dave's place near Gatesville and did some shooting. I'd let him peruse the Fat Boy (my new safe) the night before and pick out some of the stuff he wanted to shoot. You should have seen his eyes light up when I slid that big blue door open. He had his head buried in there, like a kid in a candy store. It was hilarious.



You can see from this shot, we stuffed a pretty decent assortment into the trunk, and enough ammo to allow us to enjoy ourselves for a while. There were three different versions/calibers of Kalashnikovs, my new M-1 Garand ( have two now), my M-1 carbine, and my AR-15.



Then there was my newish conceal/carry 1911, and enough Mtn Dew and cigars to keep me goin' for the afternoon.



Between the stuff I had (far side) and the stuff Joe and Dave brought, Bryce was gonna get to try out a wide range of firepower.



He spent a LOT of time fingerin' things, between constant text messaging. He was itchin' to shoot somethin'.



First thing, Dave brought out his new WW2 Garand (he's got about five of 'em). he sighted it in, and then let Bryce take a turn. He took the time to give Bryce some valuable tips on shooting. He's a natural teacher, having been shooting since he was big enough to hold a rifle. he's teaching me too, but i started too late. I'll never be as good at this stuff as ol' Dave.



At one point, Dave brought out his WW2 German Luger. It's a finicky bastard, with way too many moving parts. You can see Joe here, tryin' to get it to chamber a round. You can also see Bryce there on the left, sitting on the back of the truck and staring lustfully at Joe's M-4 carbine.



I took a hand with the Luger too. It's cool. feels really good in my hand. But it's just to fine a piece of art to have any practical use on a battlefield. No wonder the Germans switched to the P38.



In time, Bryce got to shoot Joe's tricked out Yugoslavian AKMS...



And my Polish AK-47 (they called it a PMK-PGN-60). I call mine "The mule" because the thing weighs a ton! It has a milled steel receiver, rather than stamped and pressed like an AKM. Makes a difference.

In the end, Dave brought out one of his Civil War era muskets and showed Bryce how to load and shoot it. 60 grains of powder and a .68 soft lead ball.



My camera doesn't do sound videos, but you get the picture here. The friggin' thing is almost as tall as they are, and it kicks like a mule. we all took turns, and all had fun doin' it. My gun collection needs to drift over to this sort of stuff. It's just too much fun to shoot. If you want to see some other videos and pictures, click over here.

After we finished up, Bryce and I drove down to Temple and joined the ladies at my Mom's place.



They'd been busy cooking a huge Thanksgiving feed while we were having fun shooting guns.



You can see the spread here: Ham and friend chicken, cornbread dressing, corn-on-the-cob, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, peas, brussels sprouts, corn biskets and some of Denise's Yorkshire puddings. All of that, and fruit salad, for five people. Yep, we're still enjoyin' the left-overs!



I had to, was FORCED to enjoy two plates. Here's plate number one...



And here's plate number two. Yep, it made a pig of myself, but what else is new?

After all that, after the ladies cleaned up and packed away the leftovers, Denise, Bryce and I drove back over to Killeen. they were in her car and I was in mine, smokin' a fine cigar and jammin' the tunes. Denise called me as we grove into town, tellin' me that she and Bryce wanted to go to Penny's in the mall. So we convoyed over and I met them there.

Then, after spending some time in penny's, thinking we were all gonna head home, I told Denise I'd meet her at the house. I came home and started workin' on the days pictures, but they took their time and walked through the mall. That ended up giving Denise some quality time with Bryce, and it also gave me the time I needed to finish up these pictures.

They came home eventually, and Bryce laid out all the loot she'd picked up for him. Turns out he'd got to pick out some early Christmas presents there at the mall. I told him that if his Nana lived there in Kentucky he'd be gettin' that kind of treatment about every other weekend.

We relaxed in front of the TV again Friday night, after packing for the drive back up to Dallas Saturday morning. The plans included a trip to the huge Gun Show at Market Hall, a trip to the 6th Floor Museum in Dealey Plaza, and whatever else we could think to pack into the trip.

But enough is enough. We'll talk about all that in the next post. Cheers!