Firefighting

Upon browsing the internet, I came to the realization that I have not divulged anything about my life to people I don’t know for quite some time. I now plan to change that. I shall regale you with information that will make little, if any, sense.

First off, for the past 5 weekends I have been attending a recruit firefighting academe. (In case you don’t know, I am volunteer firefighter and have been for almost two years). The class I am taking however is not sponsored by my department. If is put on by another one that we sometimes have to work with. They are very happy to have me there in spite of the friendly criticism that is inevitable between to competing originations. There is always something that someone is heckling someone else about, such as “It took you 2 min to put your SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus) on? Man, you just let somebody’s baby die.” Or “how long did it take you to hook up that hydrant? The truck will be empty by the time you are ready for water.” And so on and so forth.
Being the unstoppable force of nature that I am, I was at the top of the class in most things. I have one of the fastest donning times for the SCBA, I have the fastest times donning my turnouts, I leave little room for criticism.


One of the things I have come to realize is that, as a firefighter, I am always in urgent need of a bath room. For example, one of the instructors wanted us to put on our SCBAs and walk around until we are completely out of air, thinking it would take about half an hour. Well, shortly after we started the call of nature took me, and I was torn between seeing how long it takes to use a bottle of air, and the urge to suck down the rest of the air and get it over with. To add to this dilemma, it was a team event. So, if I were to use all my air really fast it would hurt my partners overall time as well as mine.

In the end (64 minutes later) I opted to be a team player and tried not to think about how stupid I would look when I messed in my turnouts.

Also, being from a small bathroom break of a town, on top of the normal fazing of being a firefighter, training with another department, MY department sort of has been stereotyped as redneck/backwoods. As much as I dislike such a thing I have to admit that there is some truth to the assumption. The story goes as such.

The first fire I ever went on was at a sort of run down, half way house, for criminals in between jail terms. I was fast enough getting out of bed and getting dressed that I got on the first truck out (our pumper). One the way, the chief tells me that there should be a fire hydrant near by and he wants me to take it (connect a hose to it so we can get water to the pump on the truck). Being very new and not having very much training (like I said our department is kind of back woods) I was a little worried about my job. Never the less I was going to impress the chief, so I said “not problem, I will take the hydrant”.

As soon as the truck stopped, I jumped out and started looking for the fire hydrant. After ranging through waist high brush and freaking all the neighbors out, I decided that the chief must be wrong and the hydrant did not exist, I gave up the search and told the chief I could not find it. As it turn out, it was only a little fire, and we were able to put it out with the water already onboard the fire truck.
After the fire was out and we were putting all the hose back on our engine, I look over and see a refrigerator on the side of the road right next to the house that was formerly on fire. How odd. Thinking nothing else of it I continued relaying hose. Right before we left the chief and I took one last walk around to make sure we had every thing. As we came around the last corner, we saw that the refrigerator was right in front of a nice yellow fire hydrant, sitting right where we could not see it. So, if you ever come to my town, and need to find a fire hydrant, just look for the refrigerator on the side of the road.

When the Adams family goes to town

The other day my family decided to have a little night out on the town. So, we loaded up the van and headed for the hopping retirement town of Florence OR.

Upon arriving in said town, we made a bee line for the popular pizza joint. Well, not really a bee line. It was more like a 90 degree turn with a half moon on the end of it. We pulled in the parking lot and hastily made our way inside. As could be expected of a Friday night, the place was doing record business (I think I counted eight people inside). Not at all deterred by the throng of late night bingo players, we managed to find one of the 20 unused tables, and promptly doubled the relatively fast pace of the place.

As always when we come to this restaurant, we amused ourselves with the trivia that is provided on the table. You learn all kinds of strange and sometimes interesting facts, be they general (Q: what is a lion ant? A: a bug) or specific (Q: what was Tom Hanks in the movie toy story? A: a cowboy).

After devouring the delicious pizza, we ran out of the restaurant like it was a bad date. Well not a bad date, just an old one. And with making only a few stops to pick up a couple of old guys that we happened to hit and to yell at a chap begging on a corner (it had something to do with getting a job), we ended up at our destination. THE DOLLAR TREE! Yay!

Is there another store whose employs are so creepy looking or so un-helpful? If so then surely it must be yet another dollar tree. What a wonderful store, what a magnificent waste of cash. What a bizarre candy selection. If you asked, yes, this young man’s family’s idea of fun is going to a store where everything is so cheap, that if it is not eatable, it will not make it home in working order. How sad you must think we are. But, as I had said to my mother earlier in the evening, “I would rather think I am smart, than to know I am stupid.” Therefore, I forbid any negative input on this matter, lest you burst my bubble and cast me into “the depths of despair”*.

On with the party; this time to the movie store. As we were running a little behind at this point, we elected two members of the family to enter said movie store (you should see 8 people getting out of a van, when three are in car seats) and rent only movies which ruined anyone working on them, from the producers, to the poor bloke that had to deliver them the hate mail that they got after the movie was released.

As you can see, it is a charmed life I live.

*who ever guessed what this quote is from gets to buy me lunch.

Nothing in Particular

Good evening. Well, not really, (it is, in fact, shortly after noon) I just like to say “good evening”.

That being said, I would like to move on to say that I am in an infinitely happier, and all together better state of mind than in recent (or not so recent) posts. In fact, I would go so far as to say, that I am feeling quite optimistic about the future (mine at least).

Now, on to stuff that actually matters (in truth, I don’t really think any of what I am about to say matters, but if you are reading this I don’t think you are going to care)

First off, as most of you should know (because most of you are readers of my sister’s blog, and only read mine because you are doing it as a favor to her (Yes, I know what’s really going on.)) my sister is getting married an a few weeks. As you can imagine, the whole world is not only revolving around her, it is revolving for her. I find my self driving my sister somewhere, listening to all I did not want to know about Victorian style weddings, what kind of moving van they are going to have to rent to get all their stuff across the country, and how she “just loves all the dresses that the brides maids have” (that last part is suppose to be read in a falsetto voice).

Also, I am unexplainably accumulating jobs (that I am not getting paid for) that involve me doing stuff, for reasons I don’t understand. It does not really bother me to not know why I am doing something (it’s really my life story), but I don’t know why I am doing it.

Anyway, my sister (the one getting married) told me the other day that she was worried that I was not taking my brother-in-law duty seriously. Read this:

Sister: “Rainor, I am worried about you being a good brother-in-law.”

Me: “What’s that suppose to mean?”

Sister: “You know, being a brother to Silas.”

Me: “Look, if he wants to play video games together, I am fine with that."

Sister: *looks at me like I am a dog, stuck in a puddle about half an inch deep*

The up shots of all this (the sister getting hitched and moving away) is that:

1: there will be more room at the dinner table

2: there will be more room in the car

3: there will be more room on the couch

4: I got a really cool new hat

5: I don’t have to wait as long to get into the bathroom

Well, it looks like you could lump 1-3 all together and just say “more room”, but it looks like more things are going to be better the way it is.

Expounding on up shot #4, I got a really cool new hat. It is a black fedora, with a black band, and a really gay feather in it. To understand why this hat is so cool, I have to tell you the story of how I got the suit I wear it with.

A couple of months ago, my sister and I (the one that is going to tie the knot) where in a second hand store, looking at dresses for her. As can happen easily, I got tired of her exclamations of terror, horror, and elation at some of the ugliest clothing I have ever seen. So, in a desperate attempt to save my sanity, I walked over to men’s clothing and took a look a suit coats. I did not need one (I had a decent one already) but I was getting bored with the one I had. Also, I knew a guy that just got a three piece suit, for $45, so I was on the lookout to find a better deal than that, just to rankle him.

Anyway, I was looking at some old coats that seemed to me, to fit a traveling sales man to a T, when I came across a gray, pinstripe, two piece suit. In utter astonishment, I grabbed it, and ran over to show my sister, still exclaiming over ugly dresses. As her eyes laid upon it, her jaw bounced off the clothing rack, off the roof of her mouth, and came to rest on the floor. For a moment she said nothing, then, regaining control of her mouth, said “Does it fit you?”

“I don’t know” I replied “there is no way it could”

“Well let’s try anyway” said she, almost in a wispier, as if someone might see we had a something of value and steal it.

We made our way over to the dressing room, using every bit of concealment we could, lest we find out that an employee had misplaced their personal clothing, and stole into a stall. Moments later I emerged, wearing a perfectly fitted suit, from the pants, to the sleeves, to the chest, it fitted me like bat man fitted those crazy under pants that he wore on the outside of his pants. That is to say, it was marvelous.

As you can see, all that it lacked was a hat, and I had been on watching for the right one. But with wedding fast approaching, I thought I had better do more then watch out for one. It was then that I started my search in earnest. About a half hour later, I had discovered the hat of which I have spoken, in one of those skateboarder clothing stores in the mall, sitting on a hat rack.

It is important to note, that I had also purchased a dark gray shirt, and black tie for the wedding, and that I was wearing them while I was shopping for a hat, so I could see how it would look altogether.

Soon after I had entered the store, and begun to view the hats, one of the ladies who worked there asked me why I was all dressed up. So I told her “I am going to a wedding, and am looking for a hat”. She was very excited that I would be doing such a thing and was very helpful with the selection process.

After finding the hat, I then had to walk to the other end of the mall which, ordinarily, would not have made me happy, except that I had donned my new piece wonder, and now reassembled a 1930s gangster/2009 pimp. Take your pick, but either way, people stared at me all the way to my car. No joke. And it gets even better. I had been have a really good time, right up until I walked out to the parking lot, and got into my 1993 Chevy Corsica. For those of you that don’t know, a 1993 Chevy Corsica is a drug dealer car. As you can imagine that put my fire out pretty fast.

PS. I though you might want to know, the hat cost five times as much as the suit.

Today I walked into the kitchen make myself a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Upon entering said room, I found my sister. It is not important what she was doing only that she was there.

Anyway, I walked in and discovered the bread knife in drawer where it was suppose to be. With the happiness that comes from something being as it should, I removed the knife from its resting place.

As I did this, my sister, eyeing me with a kind of sideways wariness, picks up one of those all purpose kitchen knifes. Once we had eyed each other thoroughly the following dialog ensued.

Little sister: my knife is bigger.
Me: no, yours is only wider. If you were to make them the same height they would be the equal.
Little sister: yeah, but mine would hurt more.
Me: how do you know that? I think a bread knife would hurt pretty bad.
Little sister: Well, if a bread knife hurts more, why didn’t scream use one then?

To this I had no answer so I had to concede.

I am my own worst enemy

Along time ago on the other side of the country, I made a promise. It is not a complicated promise with bells and whistle, but an uncomfortable one to keep all the same. What is this thing that causes me to take key board under hand, you may ask. Well, I will tell you the distress that has haunted me for the past two or three years.

Like I said, when I was about nine or ten, I made a promise to my mother. That promise being as follows. I said “Mom, I promise you, that when I turn 18, then I will move out”.

That’s it. The greatest fear I have ever possessed, the sum total of all my worries, the thing I have worked against since I had realized that that day was nigh upon me. I cower away from the thought, I cringe at the mention of it, I curse myself, and my un-understanding childish ways. I am my own worst enemy, and the one I have to consult on what to do.

When I made this stupid promise, I had the same problem that I do now. That is that, I think I will be ready when the time comes. I mean, at the time 18 was along time away. That was the age of tall people, mature people, the age that I would know it all. But the opposite is true. I feel like I am less prepared now than I though I was at ten. It’s kind of disturbing to think that I thought I know more then, than I know now.

I realize that I have a choice. I could do as promised and move out, or I could just pretend that it never happened and do what I really want to do (that is, live at home and be a loser my whole life). But that would do two things that I don’t like to do.

First off, I know the reason that I don’t want to move out, it’s because I am scared. I am afraid of leave what I know. What’s more, I am content here at home. I never understood people that are all fired up to run off and start their own life away from their parents. Also I am lazy. Why should I go out of my way to get something that I already have? I ask myself that question to fool myself into breaking my promise. And if I do not move out, I would prove to myself (if to no one else) that I was a coward.

Secondly, I hate liars. I can not stand a person that dose not tell the truth. So if I were to break my promise and throw away all my cares, I would become which I hate (sort of like the dilemma that Luke Skywalker had if you ask me). I would become not only my worst enemy, but also that which I hate. Kind of interesting is it not? I mean how many people are what they hate, and there own worst enemy, because they tried to help someone.

The more and more I think about it, the more and more I have come to the conclusion, growing up stinks. Its way overrated. I don’t really like the whole grown up thing. And what really makes it so distasteful is that I am being forced into it. I was forced to get a checking account, forced to get a job, forced to get my drivers license.

Its not that I want to be 17 forever, I just I don’t want to have all the responsibility that goes along we adulthood.

I really do not doubt that I will grow up and become a “responsible adult”, and become as boring as the best of them, it’s just, that like being a child.

Just what I was thinking when I woke up this morning. Its kind of depressing, sorry that you read the whole thing. I would fell kind of bad if I made someone even more unhappy than they already were. So if I did, don’t tell me. Thanks.

Pie

Seeing as how it is the heavyweight pie eating season, I would like to dedicate this to pie, the king of sweets, and to the infinite superiority of pie over cake.

Firstly I would like to list the reasons that pie is the duchess of deserts. Pie is the epitome of all deserts. Cake and cookies have a topping, doughnuts, Oreos, and Twinkies have filling. Brownies, and cheese cake (which is actually is another form of pie) have chocolate. Pie has all of these. Pie can be topped with every thing from a chocolate drizzle to whipped cream to ice cream. You can fill pie with everything from chocolate, to peanut butter, to fruit.

I have taken a lot heat because I love cheese cake. People will say stuff like “Well there goes your pie over cake theory.” and “You talk pie but you eat cake.” when in reality cheese cake is just another pie. It is true. Look at the facts.

Pie has a crust. Cheese cake has a crust.
Pie is served with whipped cream. Cheese cake is served with whipped cream
Pie is wonderful. Cheese cake is wonderful.

You see, cheese cake is just pie with another filling. Is not pie marvelous? To be able to change form so fluidly to (somewhere back in history) have one of its forms named for its own group.

Pie is also without season. Of you think about it the best time to eat cake, it is from May to October, with a little stint in January, while pie is eaten the year around. In the summer, everyone wants apple and berry pies, while in the winter pumpkin, cherry and chocolate have come into fashion, then in the New Year, cheese cake will come into its own, starting the cycle all over again.

Also, pie is more easily transported that cake. Think about it. If you are going to a party and you are bringing a cake, you have to either leave it in the cake pan and take along a serving platter, or you put it on the platter first and take the risk that the cake will spill on way to wherever you are going.
With pie on the other hand, all you have to do is bring the serving spatula.

Even though I feel strongly about this I fear all I have done is to maybe secure a few fence riders. For if you are a fan of pie already you have been reinforced in your beliefs, if you are a cake fan you are still a cake fan, and if you are on the fence you probably are still on the fence. Anyway thanks for reading.

Squirrel hunting

Last summer Sam M., my younger brother Daniel, my younger sister Christa, and myself went squirrel hunting. (Elisabeth says that though they begged her to go along, nothing would separate her from her indoor plumbing.) The place we went was nine hour drive away. The funny thing was that Sam M. decided that we would go two days before we left. To give you an idea of the suddenness with which the decision was made I will now let you in on our secret.

Once a year all of Sam M.’s family goes on vacation to a little town down the coast on a river. We live on a river, then we drive for three hours to spend a week on…………. A RIVER. If you figure that one out let me know. Anyway, the point is that we plan this whole trip all year for a five hour car ride, and we decide on the spur of the moment to travel nine hours to shoot squirrels. My life is so uncertain.

After I was informed of the plan Mom went to town and got us some .22 ammo to practice with. I had not shot my .22 in a few months and was a bad shot, as I was soon to find out, a very bad shot.

I have a Ruger 10/22 that I got at Wal-mart and it has not worked since the day I got it. It is a jam-every-other-round gun that I was not going to take with me on a bet. Luckily the guy that told us about the place we were going to had an old .22 that he was going to trade Sam M. for another gun.

When I say old I mean old. I can’t find were it says who made it. So, away, we went up to the rock pit, to sight in our rifles, and accurize ourselves. It only took a few rounds to establish that the “new” old gun was just as bad about jamming as my Ruger. In the end we called the folks (who were already in town) and they went and bought a Marlin model 60. It’s a tube fed semi-auto .22. When it came I had to slap my scope on it, run up to the back yard and sight it in, in the fading light, without a bench rest or anything. But in spite of all the obstacles I got it to shoot almost in the same hole at 20 yards (60 feet) from a sitting position.

The next day was spent packing and fighting mortal combat over the washing machine. Everyone wanted to wash there cammies (camouflage). In case you ask, no we can not all wash our cammies at the same time because we all have the same style of camo. In the end I would be wearing my shirt and my brother’s pants. That would not be so bad if my brother wore the same size as me. And if he every bathed. These two thing, and that we are controversial anyway, caused much blood shed and clever use of profanity.

After the clothes were washed we began to load the van. Yeah I said van. We were going to take ourV6 two wheel drive safari van on a hunting trip. I though it was a bad idea but no one listened to me. Anyway, we had to take the very back seat out to make room for all the camping gear. To do this we opened the back doors (It has double doors) and slid the seat out. We then proceeded to pile in the bags, food, and guns, until the rearview mirror was useless.

The next morning we got up dark and early (around 4am) and shoved in the last minute things like tooth brushes and pillows and set of on the long car ride to the other side of the state. The drive was far from uneventful (in fact I could probably write a whole other blog post about it) but I will only say that we stopped in The Dalles for lunch and gas then drove on until we needed more gas and stopped for that. It is amazing, the kind of time you can make when you do not have to stop very 20 miles for some one to go to the rest room. (Elisabeth, who is proof reading, interjects that this is a totally unfair assertion.)

We made it to Wallowa around 3 p.m. and thanks to Britney (that is what we named our GPS because of the female voice it has) we made our way through town and out the other side only to hear her say “make a legal U-turn”. That is not a good sign. Whenever she says that, it means that you are going the wrong way and had better do something or else she will never stop saying “make a legal u-turn” or “calculating route” as she tries to set us on the narrow way once more.

After we “made a legal u-turn” and were heading the “right” way, Britney spoke up again to inform us that we missed our turn. So we “made an illegal u-turn” and headed back more slowly hoping to see what we missed twice already. After we made two or three passes up and down the street, we finally saw where the street split. As it turned out that was where Britney was trying to tell us to go.

At about 3:30pm we made it to the ranch then past it to the forest service land where we were going to camp. Quickly, we set up the tents then scouted for the lavatories. After we had everything established we started searching for likely spots for the squirrels to be. Once we had marked a few spots on the map we had, we went back to camp and settled in for the night.

Allow me to educate the uneducated of you about the history of tents and water. Water as you may know is wet, very wet. And we humans do not like to be wet and cold at the same time. Therefore, man invented this thing called a tent. It kept the water out and the dry in. that’s the theory anyway. But someone more powerful decided that that was not fair for the wet, so he invented condensation. If you are in a tent that has any kind of a seal it keeps the warmer air inside and the cold air out. If there is any kind of humidity in the cold air outside the water that has evaporated condenses on the outside of the tent. That’s just where you want it, outside. But if you touch the inside of the tent the water magically comes though and is now on the inside.

Now I wrote that whole paragraph so you would understand what I am about to tell you. As you may know, I am not that tall. In fact, I am just a smidge over the average. That is the American average, not the Chinese. My head was touching one end and my feet the other. And as I explained in the above, the condensation came though and soaked my sleeping bag. Needless to say I did not sleep very well that night.

The next morning I was the first one up, and so it fell to me to discover where the breakfast food was packed. We had two rubbermade tubs that were jammed full of food and I had to go though them until I found a bowl, a spoon, and cereal. I did not have to look for the milk because it was in the cooler and was in the way from the start of the road trip.

It was not long before everyone else was up and fed, seeing as how I did all the work. So we loaded up the van with lunch, ammo, and guns and we took off. The first day was mostly driving around trying to find a good spot. We had never been here so we had only hints as to where the squirrels were.

After driving for about fifteen minuets or so we came upon a very large clearing. Along one side there was an old log about 125yrds away. Sam M. saw that and said “I’ll bet that’s where they are”. So we set up on the bank of an old un-drivable road and started looking. And sure enough there they were, about five or six of them running around the log. So we started shooting.

Daniel was shooting a Remington 597 with a straight 4x power scope. Sam M. and Christa where sharing a Ruger 10/22 that had been so modified that it was barely recognizable with a 4-16x power scope. Like I said before, I was shooting a marlin model 60 with a straight 4x power, a very deadly weapon to squirrels in the right hands. Mine where not those hands, I missed every shot that I took.

Now I did not feel too bad about missing at 125yds, especially since my gun was sighted in for 30-40yrds. But then we (Daniel and I) moved around to the right down the road that ran along just inside the tree line, we had not gone 30yds when I saw a red digger on a stump and promptly sat down in the middle of the road. Daniel who was off in his own little world did not see me sit down and kept walking. It took a couple pssts, and calling his name in a whisper to get him to stop.

After I had missed that shot I got up and walked over to Daniel and found out why he could not hear anything. He had his ear plugs in. We were shooting .22 rifle on a hunt and he had in ear plugs. So after having a silent fit, I told him to ether take them out or watch me and look for squirrels. He picked the latter and did away with watching me. After about an hour of missing we started to run out of the ammo that we were carrying and headed back to the van.

Once we got there we counted up the damages and it came to this. 150 round of ammo lost, 1 confirmed kill and one possible. Disgusted with myself I got in the rig and we drove away.

Up until this time we had been hunting on forest service land and there where more rules than on private land, so we headed over to the Wolf Ranch to see if we could do some damage over there. As we were driving over to the Wolf Ranch we met a state cop coming the other way. He flagged us down and we pulled over next to him.

“Howdy folks” said the cop “how’s it going?” which is slang for “Who are you and what are you doing?”. So Sam M., who spoke ‘cop’ said “Pretty good just doing a little squirrel hunting”. Now, the cop probably did not believe that because we were all camoed up and every thing but faces painted.

Cop: “Oh, well have you been shooting the chipmunks”?

Sam M: “Man we could not hit one of those if we tried.”

Cop: (fake laugh) “Well don’t try.”

Sam M: “Ok, by the way is it bear season or some thing? Because we have seen a lot of trucks, and we heard that there was nobody out here”?

Cop: “Yeah it’s spring bear. Do you guys have hunting licenses?

Only Sam M and I did so we showed him and he said “How’s the weather over there on the coast?” Sam told him it was wet, and we were on are way.

When we got to Wolf Ranch we walked to the top of a hill and made a plan. Wolf ranch is in the middle of other ranches that don’t like hunters so we could not leave the ranch. With this in mind Daniel and I were going to walk around the edge of the ranch while Sam and Christa were going to drive around the other way and then walk our way.

Daniel and I started walking and came upon a fence and a dilemma all at once. We did not have a map so I was running off memory and feelings. This could be the property line. If we crossed it we might be on someone else’s land. Well Daniel talked me into crossing the fence. I don’t know why I listened to Daniel, I mean I never did before, but I did this time for some unknown reason. We crossed the fence. I had never been completely ok with the choice and after a little bit decided to re-cross the fence to the side we would be on it we had not crossed. As we where doing this we saw a red digger not ten yards away I pull up my rifle and shot and missed but Daniel did not. It was his first kill. We walked the rest of the way and only saw four other diggers and three deer.

When we finely met Sam and Christa they were not were they were supposed to be. They were at the bottom of a hill and shooting 100+yds at some squirrels under a bush. After an hour of shooting and missing the diggers finally decided to go away. We walked up to se if we had hit any and saw some more live ones farther up the hill and walked the rest of he way to the top.

Once we got there we found a small field with diggers again 100+yds. This was not so bad for Christa because she had a 4-16 power scope. So when Daniel and I were having trouble seeing anything to shoot she just cranked up the scope to 13 power and blasted away.

Once the diggesr stopped coming out we walked back down the hill to the van and went back to camp. The score now stood at

Christa: 5

Sam M.: 3

Daniel: 2

Rainor: 0

I was disgusted with myself, and was convinced that my rifle was off. So after dinner (smoked hotdogs and chips) I hung an empty soda can at 40yds on a nail that had been put there for that reason by someone else. Then I lay down and set my rifle on my day pack to be sure that I was not just a bad shot. I got the crosshairs on the can then let out all my breath closed my eyes, and then opened them. My sights were still on so I know I had found natural point of aim. I squeezed the trigger and POP, the rifle went off. I could not see where I hit so I shot twice more and still could not see where my shots had landed. As I suspected the sights were off. But how far off? And where? So having no paper plates, I hung up a squire of toilet paper and shot at that. And that was not big enough, so Sam set up a small rock at twenty yards and I shot and hit that. So he moved it out to 30yds, I just barely hit it this time. We mad an adjustment and he moved the rock put to 40yds. I hit the rock again so we moved over to the paper. I aimed at the nail and hit about 8 in. down and 6 in. right. I shot again and made more adjustments until I hit the nail three times in a row.

The next day we went back to the rotten log and walked the road until we were forty yards away. The perfect range. At 8:00 exactly I shot my first red digger. It was sitting in the grass about thirty yards away. I saw it the same time as Christa as we later found out. I was prone with my rifle on a piece of wood. I could see it clearly in my scope and I waited for my breathing to set my crosshairs on the shoulder of the squirrel. Then I squeezed the trigger, I had all the time in the world and I was not going to miss. Then my gun went off. The squirrel disappeared from my view and I was not sure I hit it, then I heard Christa say “You stole my kill!” so I said “Did I hit him?” And she replied “Yeah, I saw you hit him. I had him in my sights and was about to shoot when you did.”

Ten minutes later I killed my second one. He was popping his head up and down. He was forty yards away and all that I could see was its head (about the size of a golf ball) so that’s what I shot. We were at this spot for an hour and I was the only one to kill anything.

Earlier in the trip Sam M. saw a draw that looked like it would be hard to get there, so the animals would not be so vigilant. It was on the other side of a field, so Daniel and I would walk around one way, and Sam M. and Christa would walk the other way. The reason that the draw was hard to get to was because you had to cross a creek and there were no bridges, so Daniel and I had to walk a long way before we found a slime covered rock right in the center of the creek. It was a five foot jump to the rock and the same to the other side from there. I made alright with both rifles (there was no way Daniel could make it without dropping his) thanks to my agility and unshakable sense of balance. Daniel made it to the rock then jumped right in the water. That did not surprise me at all; in fact I had already accepted it.

Finally we came to the draw and right off we saw three red diggers not thirty yards away. They were running for their holes and I knew I could not hit one. Daniel on the other hand thought that he was some sort of movie hero and opened up on them. He fired three shot at one before it made it to its hole. Knowing that if we stayed quiet long enough they would come back, I told Daniel to lay down behind the only concealment there was, a 2 ½ foot long piece of wood. Both of us were behind this log and watching the little bank for about 20 minutes and Daniel was getting restless, when I saw some thing that was not there a minute ago. So I took my rifle off the log I was using for a bench and looked through the scope and sure enough it was a squirrel. At this point I told Daniel that I could see something and he started asking where, but I was not going to tell him because he just sprays and prays so I let him ask. My barrel was right next to his ear when I shot and I don’t think I have ever seen his hand move so as when it came off his gun and to the side of his head. I felt bad about it but I got the squirrel and we went up to see. When we got there we found that I had shot it in the head. As we were walking back to the log Daniel saw another one and shot at it. He said he hit it but we never found it. Then I saw another one 20 yards a way and told Daniel right be for I shot that one. We found all the ones that I shot. This all happened within 30 minutes.

All this time Sam M. and Christa had not shown up so Daniel and I went to go find them and guide them to the draw. We found them not far away and they told us that Christa had shot a red digger before we got there. When we got back to the canyon/draw we did not go in the way Daniel and I came out. We went up the side of the hill and dropt into it from the side.

After walking along the side of the canyon for a little while we came upon a side canyon. We could see squirrels up it about 150 yds away. I did not want to shoot that far so I walked along the side of it until I came to a clump of big bushes/small trees and used them to steady my rifle, and started shooting. The closest was 40 yds out to 100. I shot until I ran dry, then I reloaded and emptied the gun again. I was the first one there but everyone came running once they heard me shooting.

When every one else got to were I was they asked me “Where are they?” I took a moment of precious shooting time to look up and say “Everywhere.” After I told them that there were still squirrels down range they too used the small clump of brush for a shooting rest and began to unload bullets really fast.

After about fifteen minutes I had shot all fifty rounds I kept in the front breast pocket of my jacket. This was a problem because there were still loads of squirrels running around. Luckily, Daniel had a lot of bullets and was gracious enough to let me have some.

(Elisabeth thinks this was terribly gentlemanly of him considering Rainor just busted his ear drum.)

Shortly after I refit we decided to move up the canyon because the squirrels started getting farther and farther away. Right before we moved I saw the first squirrel in several minutes, it was 120yds away. I was not sure how to elevate so I just held a little over its head and a little to the right for wind. Once I was ready I took up the slack in my trigger. I could feel the nasty; creep in the trigger as I pressed it to the rear of the trigger guard. I heard the POP of the round and saw the impact of the bullet in the head of the squirrel making for the longest kill so far.

Just after that we moved up what we thought was the rest of the canyon, but turned out to be the top of the mountain. It was wide open and we could se 400+yds. Not only was it a nice view it was a whole ground squirrel city! We set up on this old fence, setting our rifles on old fence posts. It was almost perfect except that the closes targets were 75yds away most of them farther than that. That did not bother me, who had just pulled off the longest shot yet, but Daniel and Christa were having trouble.

Since we had been in the middle of nowhere for two days we took this opportunity to use the only cell phone signal we had since we had been there. Sam M. called home while the rest of us kept shooting, waiting for our turn to talk. When it came my turn to talk Sam saw a squirrel a long, long way away. He took his rifle and cranked the bullet drop compensator all the way up then held five or six feet over the head of the squirrel. I did not think he could do it but I watched though my 8x power binoculars and by golly when he let fly that round he shot that squirrel, killed it dead, making the longest shot 275yds.

We had been on top of the of the this mountain all day and we could see storm clouds not to far away so we decided that we should get down before they arrived.

Because we were too tired/lazy to take the longer easier way down we just packed up and walked/slid strait down to the bottom, found the place where Sam and Christa easily crossed the creek, walked across a muddy field, jumped a fence and climbed into the van.

Seeing how everyone was plum tuckered out we drove into town, knifes, cammo, and all, and found a store that sold bear and hamburgers then went back to camp. I got a fire going in, spite of the rain, and cooked the burgers. That was the best night of all.

The next day we awoke to the sound of rain and decided that, since the red diggers we solar powered that they would not be out, and that we would have to leave the next day anyway, we would pack up and go home right after breakfast.

Breakfast consisted of rain soaked milk and cereal and yogurt. Needless to say I have had better.

The trip was just like the one out only in reverse, only forwards. We survived on now crushed checks mix, freezing Jones soda and lame county music. Let me tell you there have been worse road trips.