The Wandering Minstrel

On our way back from grocery shopping today, The Better Half snapped this photo of a fairly new Bombardier Spyder just outside of our local gun shop. Jet black and shiny, it was parked there with a red two wheeler bike. Not that I would consider motorcycle riding at my age, but seeing them brings a wave of nostalgia for my riding days (over 30 years ago).

We did not stop at the gun shop today, but I wonder if the riders were in there looking at the guns and shooting the bull with the proprietor. It seems that every time we go in the gun store, there is a gaggle of folks in there telling gun stories and so forth. It’s like the place to go and hang out for some of the townsfolk. Maybe one of these days we will go there and hang out too. Clickable image.

The 100th anniversary of Arizona statehood is February 14, 2012. The February issue of Arizona Highways will feature articles that show how much the state has changed in ten decades. Things like the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park and the Creation of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Arizona Highways website features an interactive one hundred year old map of the state. The (clickable) image below is a screenshot centered on Wickenburg at maximum zoom.

Click on the word below to unscramble the meaning. Click again to re-scramble.

From Wikipedia:

PARASKEVIDEKATRIAPHOBIA is a concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (meaning “Friday”), and dekatreís (meaning “thirteen”) attached to phobía (from phóbos, meaning “fear”).

According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day. Making it the most feared day and date in history. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. It’s been estimated that $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day. Despite this, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines do not suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays.

One of the more positive things about our new (to us) shooting facility is that it is in a very scenic location in the high desert hills outside of town. We went to the range last Friday and I took some pictures of the range and some of the scenery in and around the area. Minstrel created the slideshow seen below. Click on the image below to start the show.

This is where I go to shoot - what does your range look like?

Click on the image to view the changes to our Arizona property between about October 2010 and June 2011. The 2010 image source is the Maricopa County Assessor’s website. The 2011 image is taken from Google Maps.

We officially moved in to our new house on January 8th of this year so this will be our first Christmas and New Year’s Celebrations here. We were in Wickenburg last Christmas, but staying in the Super 8 about a mile from here.

We also stayed overnight on Christmas Eve at an RV park southeast of town three years ago. That’s when we started having designs about moving to Arizona at that time. We are very glad that we are here now.

. . . play in any reindeer games. Image found on the internet a while back and reserved for the festive holiday season . . .

The weather here sucks today. Nonetheless, I had to venture out of the house for a couple of errands in spite of the rain. I spotted this clean ‘60 T-bird in the supermarket parking lot. A long time ago, a friend had one of these in midnight blue. We called it the “Batmobile.” Clickable image.

We went to the range yesterday and afterwards cleaned our guns, as usual. Before we started, I posed “Rosie,” my Smith & Wesson .38 special 442 J-frame revolver on the felt workbench cloth and snapped this nice photo (if I do say so myself). Clickable image.