What a Day!

The weather forecast for today was typical for this time of year: 40% chance of rain by 1 pm. All summer we've been talking about doing target shooting (pistol) and decided this was the day, since the morning looks good and the practice area isn't far away.
The day was jump started by @ 10 hr. of sleep; these very cool nights are perfect for snoozing under our big down comforter. After a rather lazy early morning over coffee, Cheerios & fresh peaches, we headed out. We found that the previously existing target stand had been torn down...why, we don't know, but since this has always looked like a very informal setup, we figure the Powers That Be took it all down. We improvised by tacking our paper plates to the remaining post stubs, worked just fine.

E. with his 9 mm. automatic,

and me with the 38 special. Do I look like I'm gritting my teeth? We both forgot to remove our hearing aids before the first shot was fired; my ears recovered an hour later.

I felt good about my prowess with the pistol (not my weapon of choice), hit the paper plate 4 out of 5 shots.

Incidentally, I did finally receive my concealed weapons permit from Arizona. Now when the pistol "accidentally" gets left in the car & I am driving somewhere alone, I'll be legal. That was really the whole purpose of going through the required routine. Along the way, I found I still love target shooting and the smell of gunpowder!

Both pistols carry enough kick that we didn't do a lot of shooting, but enough to keep up the familiarization with the weapons.

Though the sun was totally uncooperative this morning, I did get some shots decent enough to provide a preview of what's to come. The rectangle of aspens on the right, often referred to hereabouts as the "postage stamp", is almost always the first harbinger of the oncoming golden glory; it's widely visible as you enter town from the north and from many places on the main drags through Lake City.

We stopped along the Lake San Cristobal to let me get this shot, colors are just becoming visible on many mountainsides but here and there individual trees are already an intense, vivid yellow.

Later I'll share more of what I've learned about aspens, it's a rather fascinating story.

In the meantime, these photos are just a teaser!

We have for several days been planning an extensive ATV ride to Bristol Head with 3 other ATV's amongst our park campers, which means we get up early and depart at 8 am tomorrow, driving over Slumgullion Pass, Spring Creek Pass, and on down to the high plateau above the Rio Grande Valley. In preparation, we've hooked up the ATV trailer, gassed up, only to find one of the trailer tail lights is out! So right now E's in the process of getting it working again.

We've been lucky, with all our futzing around outside today, that it hasn't yet rained. We're optimistic that tomorrow will be the same and we'll get in a good ride without getting out our wet suits. The area where we're going is new to us, and is in a location where the aspens usually turn earlier than they do in the more adjacent areas.

We have homemade beef vegetable soup & fresh French bread from the bakery for supper, and we're looking forward to a good day again tomorrow!