Winter Range, side event day

Andy:
I shot 4 stages of Warm-Up event this morning, that's regular stages for practice more than for score; 4 stages of Plainsman event this afternoon, that's using cap & ball pistols and single shot rifles; and then did a Posse Marshall walk-through of all 12 main match stages before the shooter appreciation dinner.  Then back to the trailer to clean a couple well dirtied pistols in preparation for tomorrow.  Winter Range shoots the main match in 3 waves each day.  Mine is the middle wave tomorrow (11 AM) for the first day, early Friday and late on Saturday.  It will be nice to not have to rush first thing in the morning.   I've been getting up at 5 or 6 for 5 days now.
The forecast is for rain tomorrow.  So bad that they have announced an allowance for rubber boots or other alternate footwear for all categories.  Apparently this place gets to be an especially mucky type of clay mud when it gets wet.  We've seen that stuff a few times on various western trips. Oh joy.  Come 2500 miles to shoot in a cold rain.  I can do that all summer in New England.

Carlene:

Cal and I took a drive to North Mountain Visitor Center for another day of hiking while the good weather holds.  There were several trails to pick from. I selected a four mile hike to Shaw Butte which was rated moderate to difficult. It was steep in a couple places with some loose gravel, but quite doable. We passed many others, hiking, biking, and with their dogs. There was a hummingbird perched on the tip of a branch that I checked with my binoculars, and I tried to ID it with my Audubon App. It did not appear to be a ruby-throated hummingbird. It's throat appeared black. This looks like a great place for birders as there seemed to be numerous birds flitting around. 

Lookout Mountain - yesterday's hike

from the summit of Shaw Butte

from Shaw Butte

Callahan checking out some activity in the bushes

Shaw Butte

Andy's pictures:

Shirttail Bess 

The Warbirds flyover