The Wandering Minstrel

I was on the computer this afternoon looking at the Maricopa County Assessor’s interactive parcel viewer. The map has an aerial map mode, so, out of curiosity, I scrolled across to Constellation Road to look for the Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club rifle and pistol range. I captured this (clickable) image of the facilities.

Our facilities feature a 100 yard rifle range, 1- 50 yard rifle/pistol bay, 2 - 25 yard pistol bays as well as Trap and 1-5-stand. The longer ranges are near the center with the pistol bays just below. The 5 stand and trap ranges are near the bottom of the image across the clearing from the clubhouse and restrooms. The facility at the upper left is for the archery club which will soon be merging with WSC.

We figured a little outdoor grilling would augment our enjoyment of watching the NFL Conference Championship Games this weekend. To that end, we marinated some chicken breasts in soy sauce for a couple of hours in the refrigerator and grilled them to a golden brown color over charcoal. The Better Half served these over a bed of white rice with stir-fry vegetables for a delectable Asian-style supper. Clickable image.

The President of the Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club found out after extensive research, that WSC owns 40 additional acres adjacent to it’s existing range. The 40 acres was acquired from the Bureau of Land Management by the Town of Wickenburg for the WSC for a shooting range way back in 1977. The Club is still mulling over how to use the land but a 1000 yard rifle range has often been mentioned.

A survey of all WSC property including the 40 acres took place this week. At the orientation last weekend, the range officer mentioned that the range would be closed on Wednesday January 12th after 11:30 AM for the survey. On the tour of the range, the RO jokingly said that the survey team had been offered Kevlar vests but elected instead for the option to close the range down.

We’re busy with getting settled in at the new home and, to complicate matters (for us at least) is the fact there were NFL Wildcard Playoff games all weekend and tomorrow will be the Auburn-Oregon College BCS National Championship game tomorrow in Glendale, AZ. We’re huge football junkies, so these activities are a time sink that takes away from blogging.

My only comment about the NFL playoffs thus far, is that on the first day of playoff action, both teams (Saints and Colts) that played in the Superbowl last year were summarily eliminated. It’s been a weird season for football and a great many other things.

On Saturday, The Better Half and I will be attending the Range Safety Orientation at the Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club. A combination of the business of building a new house and getting our old one ready for the market have delayed our application for membership.

The club is a recreational shooting organization with facilities for pistol, rifle, trap and skeet. There are regularly scheduled events and the club offers training for Arizona CCW, range safety officer and many other activities. The club is affiliated with the NRA which is good since we’re both life members.

I’m looking forward to when The Better Half and I get to meet the people in the club. We anticipate being very active after we get the new house furnishings in place.

We were in football and feeding mode on a dreary day at the big California house. We didn’t even change out of our pajamas today.

Because it was raining at the time, I set up the BBQ on the enclosed part of the back patio and grilled up a couple of beef tenderloin steaks while The Better Half baked some savory potato wedges and steamed some broccoli on the side. We enjoyed this sumptuous meal while watching a few of the last week of regular season football games. There *may* have been some Sam Adams Winter Lager and a glass of chardonnay or two in the mix. A good day in spite of the gloomies.

The Better Half and I watched all episodes of History Channel’s Top Shot series so when I read my digital copy of NRA’s American Rifleman yesterday, I was primarily interested in the article about Iain Harrison, winner of the reality show’s contest. The story of Mr. Harrison’s background was very interesting and a good read.

The article starts out with the guns Iain surrendered to (formerly) Great Britain when the unconscionable Firearms Act went into effect when the government confiscated guns from law abiding citizens. That’s the sad part, but it’s over quickly and the rest of the story is upbeat and interesting.

Shot Across the Pond

Iain Harrison’s fascinating journey from Queen’s soldier to The History Channel’s “America’s Top Shot” champion is steeped in hard work, sacrifice and respect for the Second Amendment. Read the full story about how this British ex-pat was chosen out of an estimated 5,500 applications to participate in, and ultimately become America’s Top Shot

Mr. Harrison apparently left the United Kingdom for reasons similar to our motives in leaving California: Second Amendment freedoms.

We are looking forward to shooting at the Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club. We are going to return to the new home in December at which time we will attend the range safety class and pay our 2011 dues. We will have some of the arsenal with us and will shoot a box or two of ammo if we can.

I took a lot of video footage at the old range, but way too much to post on the web. I was digging through the archives this afternoon and found this video of The Better Half chopping a silhouette target in half with her 20 gauge Remington 870 shotgun. Seeing how much fun we used to have made me even more anxious to get some instruction on shooting airborne clay targets at the trap and skeet ranges. Neither of us have ever done that sort of shooting. It should be even more fun than shooting paper indoors.