Last day of Rampage

 Second and final day of the SC State shoot.  Good stages, lots of fun. Four stages today and we were finished by noon.  

There was an open shoot-off in the afternoon but Joe and I came back to camp to start packing.  Actually I packed and Joe cleaned guns.  I have to clean too but it can wait a few days, packing cant wait.  We’re headed up to NC tomorrow for a couple nights camping with David & Gale.

Later this afternoon we all went to the local country club for the awards ceremony.  I did have a Clean Match!  And I took second place in Frontiersman.  Preacherman from FL won it, as he has done all 3 times I’ve shot with him.  He runs a reproduction Colt Lightning (pump action) rifle that is beautifully fast and smooth.  

This evening we again spent it at Joe & Pat’s, ET and Dawn came over too.  We had a very nice campfire.  We stayed long enough that this is a short blog tonight!

Tucker T. Fudpucker

Sometimes I photograph someone just so I can share the alias!

Durango

Dakota Joe

Squirrelly Girl

Yankee

Frontiersman winners, Cider Barrel, me, Preacherman

Resurrection  Fern 

She found this and broke it off a tree during our final walk of the night.

First day of the Main Match

 We shot six stages today and will shoot four more tomorrow.  I am clean so far!  The big trick with a clean day is keeping the momentum going on another day. And my times were consistent and all in my normal range. That’s usually a good thing.  

When we got back to camp Joe and I took Skye down to the river for a good swim. She was pretty happy with that.  Came back to the camper and while petting her I stuck myself with a fishhook she had stuck in her coat.  Yes, luckily just in the coat.  But it took me several minutes to get 2 hooks out of the mats in her coat and 5 more out of her collar.  Those in the collar were  all meshed in a ball of fish line that someone had thrown away or lost on the ground. 

Carlene and Pat went toward Charleston and checked out the historic Boone Hall Plantation that is now open to the public.  It was a 4,000 acre plantation going back to the late 1600s.  The last owners made it a public place in perpetuity.  

And they came back with fresh strawberries!

We spent the evening at the campfire and also watched the Artemis’s splashdown.  We watched until the fort two were off Orion.  By then it was getting chilly, the fire was burning down and I was still in shorts & T shirt.

Eastern Tenderfoot timing Dakota Joe

Dusty Lady

Dakota Joe

Lacy Remington

Throw me something!

Entering the plantation 

Slave quarters

Rams Horn Willow

Trumpet Honeysuckle

Nesting Great Egrets

Polo ponies

Delicious

Side event day at the Rampage

Side event day at Rampage at Ridgeville, the SC state Cowboy Action Shooting Championship.  Joe and I shot the Black Powder match in the morning and Wild Bunch in the afternoon.  Each was a 4 stage match, so 8 stages today.  We’re a bit tired.  It was a good day and we both felt good about how we shot.  Oh, there were good stages and occasional not so good stages, pretty normal.  But the stages were well written and fun.  Tomorrow the main match begins.

Carlene and Pat went to nearby Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site.  I hadn’t heard of it but it was a historic section of SC Colony from 1697 through Revolutionary times, a trading point between the farmlands and the seaport at Charleston.

We spent the evening with Joe and Pat at their campfire.

Duc McCandless

Bathtub Ginny

Slippery Stew and his motorized gun cart

If he doesn’t have whatever anyone needs a he will next time

The Ashley River

Spanish Moss

Southern Dewberry

Givhans Ferry et al

 We had a pretty simple day.  Clean out the truck to go to the shoot, get all the necessary supplies ready, put Joe’s cart and gear in my truck to be ready tomorrow.  Pat and Carlene will have Joe’s truck and he’ll ride with me.  

After lunch we went over to the Palmetto Gun Club to check it out.  Nice place.  10 separate bays, all set up and appeared ready to shoot.  Good thing, they had a small group of workers who were about to shoot it this afternoon.  We met a few people, old friends and new acquaintances.  Then we hit the local supermarket for supplies.

Back at camp Carlene and I checked out the camp HQ and store.  We didn’t buy much.  Also checked on the cancellation we had requested.  We had reserved Sun and Mon nights but now are going to NC to meet David & Gale.  The website would only allow me to cancel everything, not just 2 nights, beforehand.  When I checked in yesterday the power was off so nobody had internet, nothing could be checked.  Now it seems that SC Parks isn’t sure who we are.  We have this site but they cant find us in the system.

This is the only photo I took today. This is at the shoot, apparently it’s the surgeon’s stage.

Looking forward tot the story that goes with it.

Givhans Ferry State Park, Ridgeville, SC

 Despite the tight driveway in our campsite at Elijah we had no trouble getting out.  It took time to get ready; I had used all but one piece of the cribbing I carry to level the trailer there, so deconstructing that and packing it was time consuming.

We took 4.5 hours to come here, it was a bit longer than maps had indicated.  That’s normal, the truck’s GPS is programmed for the camper and takes different routes than a map app.  And we choose less interstate highway.

We got in at 2:30, got the camper settled and found out there was no electric power in the park.  A work crew was excavating and cut the power cable!  There was a big crew here working on repairs.  

I went back out for propane. The park people told me to go to Tractor Supply because it was cheaper.  I found TS in the GPS and headed out.  The GPS was still in trailer mode and it took me on a 30 mile route to the nearest TS.  They don’t have propane!  Great.  But they told me about a vegetable stand that did, and a TS customer gave me detailed directions, saying she once lived on that street.  I found it, nice produce market with a propane tank!  And the GPS took me back to camp at only 18 miles.

By 6 the power was back on.  There is barely any cell signal here so it’s good to have power to run the Starlink!  

Dakota Joe and Pat arrived at 4, we had supper together and talked of traveling and camping.  

This park is on the Edisto River, we camped at Edisto Beach State Park a couple times on the earlier trips, out by the mouth of this river.

Southern delicacies?

Lyreleaf Sage

The beach on the river

Joe and Pat are almost directly across the road from us

We hear that there will be many cowboys in this campground 

Hiking at West Dam on the Berlin Trail

 We went back to the West Dam area, that’s where we found beach areas for Skye to swim a couple days ago.  They had told us that the trail was functional even if not officially open.  We found that to be true!  And since the trail follows the lakeshore Skye had numerous opportunities to swim.  Of course she took all of them!

The trail showed signs of having been hot by Helene and also having logging right up to the edge of the trail.  And sometimes right over the trail.  The trail actually uses log roads in places, maybe i should say the log roads used the trail.  Following the Topo Maps + app and walking the log roads they matched perfectly.  It might be part of the plan, the log roads are now the trail.

Back at camp later I put the repaired tire back on the trailer and did some packing.  That sentence was good for an hour’s work.

Tomorrow we move over to Givhans Ferry State Park in SC for several days and the South Carolina State Shoot.  We’ll meet a few friends there too.  It’s the closest campground to the shoot so there should be plenty of cowboys around!  It’s about 150 miles from here so we should be in fairly early afternoon.

We are trying to keep track of the Artemis mission during days of doing other things.  I see they have surpassed the farthest distance from Earth record today. That’s a fine milestone all by itself.  Naturally it’s a record setting flight.  Christina Koch is setting records for every single thing she does since leaving earth orbit!

Got to talking with the neighbor tonight.  They live near Savannah and come here about twice a month for several years.  He stores a boat and a golf cart here.  Says the lake is often this level this late in winter but it fills up during the spring/summer.  Although this is a big drought now.  He figures this is down maybe 7’ now but he has seen it down 25’.  At that point some of the town that was flooded by the reservoir becomes visible again.  He says that’s a bit spooky.

Southern Dewberry

Blue Toadflax

Violet Wood-sorrel

Carolina Crane’s-bill