The Big Bang

This weekend, Doc and I took a little trip out to the Lucerne Valley, in the high desert of Southern California. We went because the Lucerne Valley Lion's Club has a fundraiser every year. The theme is cowboy shooting and my grandson Preston has gone for the last 3 years. The venue is waaaayyyy out there in the desert.

That's a good thing, because you definitely don't want a shooting range in the middle of a populated area. We had to off-road it a bit, and I was happy that we took the Cadillac instead of the little MB SLK. That would have been rough.

This is looking south towards Hesperia.

This is looking north towards Big Bear Lake. Very sparsely populated, indeed. Not even any cows, which the valley was famous for in the 60s. Cows and potatoes.

 Eyes and ears were required before entering the venue. Preston is 7 years old.

First stop - Cowboy guns. You pay a fee, then get to shoot the guns, with the instruction of the cowboys. It's usually $1 for 3-5 rounds, and $2 for the 50 caliber gun, which I will show you later. The funds go to a variety of organizations in the high desert. They even had a bloodmoblie there, in case you wanted to donate. I almost did.

You stand in the gallery and the targets are way back in the rocks. 

 Cowboy guns had three separate fees for each gun - rifle, single action pistol, 20/20 shotgun. 

Here is Preston and the cowboy and the 20/20. This particular cowboy had recently been very ill and used a lot of blood, hence the blood mobile. He's doing well now.

The middle cowboy helped with the single action pistol. I shot the pistol and the single action, but I was getting nowhere near the shotgun. Preston had to have the cowboy help him hold it up, since it was so heavy.

Here's Doc waiting his turn - he shot all three, and went back for the 20/20 again. The next stop was the booth from Turner's Outdoorsman, a very popular hunting and fishing shop here in SoCal. They had a 210 rifle and a 22 long rifle.

We all shot the 22. Preston and Doc and Luke shot the 210.

We had a visitor - a snake !!!

He or she just cruised their way through the shack and up into the rocks. The cowboys said that it wasn't a rattle snake, and for nobody to panic or try to touch and capture it.

The venue is designed like an Old West town. This view looks down main street. There are booths on one side (the side facing the rocks) and there was spectator seating in the shade across the street from the booths (on the left).

Of course, I had to hop in the coffin at the undertakers.

Here is the 50 caliber. None of us wanted to try it, but it had a long line. It looks like a bazooka. The targets were so far away that they were hard to see.

The Girl Scouts even had a booth, shooting revolvers and selling cookies. It's on the left.

The last stop was the NRA qualifying booth. I guess that if you are a member who keeps track of their times, they will time you. You have three guns- rifle, pistol, shotgun, and there were 5, 3 and 2 targets respectively. Your time is how long it takes you to hit every target. Luke, Doc and Preston did it, but none of us had any idea if their times were good or bad.  This is in the white tent on the left. In the little barn, they had some kind of semi-auto weapon, but they ran out of ammo before we got there. Several booths ran out of ammo towards the end of the event.

And that was our excitement!!! We went back to Luke and Ashley's house and watched Guardians of the Galaxy. I actually liked it. We also played laser tag. Pandi came along, but she was insanely jealous of Annie, Preston's German Shepherd Dog. Poor Annie had to sleep in Preston's bedroom instead of her own bed, but everyone was a good sport about it, except Pandi. It's a good thing that she is so cute and Preston loved her.

Back to work today, and this is what I wore:

This is an INC silk top that I got in Las Vegas, and a handmade silk skirt from my seamstress days.

Here's a closer look - the top is pirate style, and the skirt is blue and green tropical print silk.

I wore my mom's jade and laps necklace again. It was still on the top of the dresser and it matched.

On my right arm, a sapphire/diamond ring and an enamel cuff.

On my left arm, an opal ring and two enamel bangles.

And now for the links !!
www.beauty101bylisa.com, www.stylenudge.com, www.notdeadyetstyle.com, wwwcolorandgrace.com, www.bylaurenm.com, www.northwestblonde.com, www.finewhateverblog.com, www.clairejustineoxox.com


See you all soon !!!