SC State SASS Shoot, Wild Bunch day

 This was forecast to be a very wet morning with thunderstorms until noon.  The bigger side events were postponed until 1.  It did rain a few times but didn’t amount to much.  I went over at 11, saw several friends and got my gear ready for 1.  I was ready at 12, but just wandered around finding more people to talk to.

The Wild Bunch match was 4 stages on 2 bays, a typical situation.  They didn’t have any layout changes between stages, just different target sequences.  Also a frequent situation.  But it didn’t rain at all during the afternoon of shooting, so it was GREAT!

I was 100 yds down the road when it began to rain, poured all the way back to camp.  Then stopped.  We’re 10 minutes from here to the range.

We hung out on the deck for a while with ET, Dawn & Roy.  Then ET & Dawn grilled up some really good venison burgers for all of us.  Delicious!  

Carlene and I walked with Skye for a while then back to relaxing on the deck for the rest of the evening.

Belton 3

Today started out rainy and then turned into a nice afternoon.  

We went back to Belton to do some laundry this morning.  In the afternoon we hung out at camp. Skye spent most of the afternoon in the water.  The guys who camped here with us last year came around.  They are at another location at Toney Creek. Another guy came to camp   And Rancho Roy arrived too  there are now 4 campers here  

A couple guys came around with a dog trailer and maybe 8 dogs to do some training in the water.  Duck retriever training. Several different stages of experience.  One very good one which was able to swim all across the pond to get the dummy thrown for it.  Others were across the spectrum to a young pup still figuring out what he is supposed to do.  

I got onto the WiFi in the building so we have photos again.  

With her toy for some tug

Ducks outside our  camper door

Belton 2

 Woke up to rain this morning. It lasted until about 2. 

It was a pretty simple day.  Hung around camp all morning and then went to Belton village to get groceries and meds.  Later this afternoon I worked on the taxes.  

Thrilling day!

Belton SC, Toney Creek

 It was only about a one hour drive from the park to our new camp.  

We are at the Toney Creek Plantation in Belton, SC. The SC SASS State Championship is a few miles away and you’ll hear more about that in a few days.

The sky was nice and clear for the eclipse today.  We watched it frequently and I took a few photos.  It was 82% here according to the Belton official eclipse website.  It did get to a very small solar crescent but that still let enough light out so it didn’t get to the dark and collapsed effect people in VT talked about.

Our friends ET and Nantucket Dawn are here too.  They arrived right after we did.

After supper Carlene, Skye and I went for a walk up to the next road.  Saw a few cows in the pasture but they didn’t come down to meet us.  Some do.  Some don’t.  

Nice sunny day to relax in the state park.  Spent the morning hanging out in camp, Skye was swimming, Carlene did some laundry, I was reading.  We had our chairs down at the water.  During lunch she was on her rope at camp, looking toward the water and whimpering.   

This afternoon we checked out the town. The grocery store was closed, empty.  That left a mom & pop store, a 7-11, a dollar store, family dollar store and dollar general store.  We hit three of them to get five items.  Back to camp for another Skye swim. 

This evening we walked around the campground to see the last of the sunset.  

Calhoun Falls State Park, Calhoun Falls, SC

Very easy drive to the State Park, less than 200 miles. Another sunny day. Got slightly mixed up in Macon area, construction often banboozles the GPS when new roads are where old roads were.  Only a few miles of detour.  

Now sitting in the late day sun on this big deck above the lake.  Not much view but still nice.  Skye went for a couple swims.  Not nearly enough to satisfy her.   But we don’t know what that would take.  

We took a short walk around the park. Found a trail leading to the park store and had an ice cream sandwich with chocolate chip cookies.  It might have been a mile around the loop. 

Really poor cell signal for photos.  These two took a half hour to load.  

Lane Southern Orchard, Fort Valley, GA

Yup, sunny and clear.  70 here in Georgia, a bit west of Macon.  Now that we are in GA we’re back in Eastern Time.  This is Lane Southern Orchards which specializes in peaches and pecans.  We stayed here last year too. After a 4 hour drive (plus an hour for the time zone) we walked Skye, checked in and did some shopping.  It’s a big store with a lot of variety, as long as it’s peach flavor.  Peach everything!  And some other flavors for some variety.  Tonight the parking lot is full of campers.  It’s a very popular Harvest Host site.  The last few came in after closing so they’re not buying anything tonight.  That’s supposed to be part of the HH deal, spend $20-30 at the host business.  We made up for someone!

People picking berries

Nothing like a roll in the grass

I counted 15 campers in the lot

Strawberries are ready and Carlene picked a basket!

We had a few for desert tonight.  Wonderful!