The Pumpkin Cheesecake Diaries: 3-1-2020

ALL ABOARD FOR COURSE #22

A quarter to five comes pretty early for a snowbird. I fed the horses at 5:00 AM and prepared to hit the road by 6:30 AM. Normally I arrive at a shoot the day before. I like to get settled in and not feel rushed. ..sort of 'get all my balloons in a row' type thing. This would be my first shoot were I rolled in the morning of...shot, and rolled out. Wasn't nearly as stressful as I thought. You didn't have time to stew about things and work yourself into a ball of nerves. The downside being you didn't have as much time to visit with your shooting friends. Somewhere along this adventure I've become a social butterfly. Eh...maybe not a butterfly...more like a social caterpillar that will one day morph into a butterfly...it could happen? Right? No?

The Winter Range shoot started at 9:00 AM. A three stage, one day shoot paying fastest time per class per stage. No overall class payout. I entered main match and shotgun.

Cindy, Patty and I, along with horses, Cowboy and J'Lo (Patty didn't enter), pulled into Ben Avery shooting facility a little after 8:00 o'clock. We paid our fees at the office and prepared to shoot.

The Senior Lady's 1's go first in this part of the country, unlike the Pacific Northwest where we start with the upper class 6's and work down to the 1's. I prefer it when they start with the sixes. I like to watch them run so I can see the proper way to run a course. Starting with the 1's is a bit unnerving for the 1's. I am a SL3 -regardless of which end they start on, I'm going to be in the middle so I'm relatively unaffected either way. My friend Lynn is a SL1 and was first out of the gate today. I have to hand it to her, she handled it in stride and had three good runs.

My first course was acceptable. I shot clean. I didn't ask for a lot of speed. I tried to run it in a way that took up the least amount of real estate. I would run it different next time. I would run it taking wider barrel turns and less lead changes. Smoother will always be faster. Shoot and learn...

My second run was a train wreck. Well, more of a train ride, actually. A nice leisurely train ride through the countryside. I'm still not certain what happened other than I got completely and totally lost in the pattern....which totally sucks because it's one of the easiest patterns to run. It's called the “S”. By the time I crossed the finish line – I had run the entire alphabet. I 'think' what happened is we over-ran the first gate which shot us out toward the rundown barrel. Instead of cutting back across the arena to the second gate – I got lost – holstered and drew my second gun, turned the rundown barrel...realized too late what I did and ran toward home. I changed my mind just before crossing the timer. I paid my money, damn it...I was finishing the course. I circled J'Lo and made my second pass at the rundown barrel. I'm fairly certain I heard a collective “WTF” from the crowd. Now I'm totally confused on which gun to draw. I shoot AT the second gate (couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if I were standing in it at this point) and make a third pass at the rundown barrel? By this time I'm out of ammo on whichever gun I pulled. When it was all said and done, I made two if not three rundown barrel turns, two rundowns and still left four balloons standing. Some days your the ammo...some days you can't shoot yourself out of a wet paper bag.

I redeemed myself on the third run. I didn't know it until after I got home, but I won stage 3. I don't know if they will send me a check or if you forfeit by not being at the awards. I hope not...it could be like 6 bucks...that's two boxes of Pop-Tarts and a Twinkie!

If I had known shotgun was not open and limited – I would not have entered. I'm glad I didn't know. I love shooting shotgun whether I win or not. There were five of us in the shotgun class. Three young gals I normally couldn't outrun on their worst and my best day and Don Evans, SM5. Don won first. I placed second shooting against 4's and 5's non gender/non age split. I'll take it even without a check.

Cindy and Cowboy had three beautiful runs winning all three stages in their class and placing 10^th in the overall. Not too shabby!

We stopped at the Mesa for dinner and made it home around 5:30 PM. By the time we got unloaded the wind had picked up putting the kibosh on Patty's nightly fire. We caught up with Dave who had a good day roping on his faithful buckskin “Woodrow” by placing second. It wasn't until I started to type this blog and got on CMSA to see how Lynn and Cindy placed that I discovered I'd won my last stage. Shooting, like life...has lessons tucked within the folds of everyday moments. Today I learned to never give up. It ain't over until the fat lady sings, or...in my case: It ain't over until the SL3 takes a train ride through course #22.

The Pumpkin Cheesecake Diaries - 1-18-2020

Candy Canes and Bisley Hammers

I got up early enough for the horses to finish breakfast and take them out for some exercise before stalling Jack for most of the day. I hate leaving him cooped up like that. He didn't want to go back in but I didn't want to worry about him tied while J'Lo runs her stages. I'd take him out for a run when we were through.

This is by far the biggest shoot I've entered. There are over 133 shooters. They ran two arenas. Great – I was barely getting comfortable with managing one. They ran stage 1 in the main arena, stage 2 in the side arena and stage 3 back in the main arena. You had under 30 minutes between stages 1 and 2. I found I like it better...you don't have time to sit around and work yourself into a frenzy between runs.

It doesn't matter that I didn't know anybody before coming here. I recognized the names: 2019 World Champion Dylan Lawson jumped straight off the cover of my RUNDOWN magazine. I watch every You Tube video Kenda Lenseigne puts out. Seeing her run Sparky in person kind of gives you goosebumps. Dan Byrd, Rob Boucher and Cecil Berry under the same roof. The coolest part about it is each of them seem to be as down to earth as people get. You don't get the feeling they are doing you a grand favor by greeting you with a genuine smile and a hello.

It took me a while to figure out the logistics of a shoot this size. Where are the boundaries of the gun loading area? I found that out in short order when the lady running the entry gate kindly pointed out I was in the wrong area after loading. I've been to shoots where the person running it was down right mean if you made a lesser mistake. I'll never figure people like that. I would think it would take less effort to be kind...but whatever. We got other things to do.

There are 13 ladies in my class. I've never had a class close to this size and lucky to get a full class at all. I wasn't as nervous as usual. I think because I didn't expect to be competitive anyway. I'd just run, not safety up and go with it. I didn't know who to follow because I didn't know any of them. The gal running the gate took the time to show me who to follow and when to get loaded and ready. Again...very professional people running the shoot. I would follow Jean and would later get to know her better as a real kick in the pants.

J Bird made her circle and we were heading to my least favorite course in the book – the “Candy Cane,” aka “The Fast Five.” I reminded myself not to safety up. I cleaned up the random five – turned the rundown barrel, pulled the trigger and....click. Damn. I've been doing that a lot in practice. I assumed it was my ammo. I legitimately missed the next balloon and finished off the rest. I had a raw time of 13 seconds. The fastest time on any course for me thus far. J'Lo ran flawless. I was happy regardless of the missed balloon and the clicker. I gained a little confidence thinking maybe I could be competitive with this group.

The next stage was an easy flowing stage. Surely I got this. J' Ran like a rock-star. I finished off the random five...pulled my gun for the rundown and hit a clicker on the 9^th balloon. What the hell? I unloaded and inspected my gun. The cylinder on my second gun was spinning free. The dimple on the ammo hit in the rim and not the primer. Shit.

Lynn disappears and magically reappears with a young girl who's not only a gunsmith, but L5 Rylee Lawson...Dylan Lawson's sister. “Oh...that's not supposed to happen,” she says as she watches my free-spinning cylinder. She asked if I had another gun. I said I did not. I was up in 5 minutes. She ran off with my gun and returned with another for me to use. “Here, use this one until I can get yours fixed.”

I've never shot guns but mine with the exception of the first day I tried mounted shooting with a borrowed gun and horse. Besides the bisley hammer I'd never seen until now, it felt pretty good.

It was another smooth course. J'Lo did her job well. I cleaned up the random five, drew my borrowed gun at the rundown and started to pick them off. It felt different, but not terrible. I thought I had this...I was going to shoot a clean stage. I leveled in on the 10^th balloon and “click.” What the hell. I don't know if I slip hammered or didn't stage the gun correctly. Still, I was OK with it – our raw time was competitive with the other ladies in my class.

I gave J'Lo an extra cookie before stalling her for the night. She ran harder and smoother than ever today. Even with 20 seconds in penalties, I felt like I shot better than I have in the past. I didn't safety up. I successfully tried a few things like longer shots, tracking my targets and running through gates faster. I felt better about my runs today than I have about some shoots I've won. I am more confident now that I can be competitive.

I haven't seen Rylee or my gun since we made the quick trade. She is shooting in some of the auxiliary events going on as I type this. I can hear the announcer and shooting over the loudspeaker - it sounds like she is doing well. I don't know if I'll have my gun back tomorrow for the final two stages. I hope so. I'd like the chance to shoot clean not only to redeem myself, but for J'Lo. She really did give it her all. If not, I guess I better figure out how to maneuver this bisley thing before 9:00 AM.