reawakening

So this week is game hunting week, or big game week, or something like that. Xan told us the theme had to do with that, game and hunting and such. So far this week we've had men come on two different nights to talk around that subject, Monday night and tonight; I can only imagine what tomorrow night and Saturday hold, although I hope I have an idea.

Both of these nights so far were great, in fact today was an amazing day overall, but I'll save both Monday night and a great adventure from this afternoon for another post because just tonight has enough weight of its own.

Well tonight three of our shooting guides came over for dinner. Actually one of them, Steve, we knew was a shooting guide and have been anticipating him coming over for probably a month and a half or so now, so it was great to finally have him over. All three though are amazing men with great stories, both about hunting as well as life in general, which they shared generously. They also generously shared their prizes: Steve, Mark, and Charles had brought various kinds of meat that they had killed. Tonight was the fullest we've ever seen our grill, though it has been put to great use before. There was all kinds of meat- wild turkey, elk, quail, pheasant, and chucker. They had been prepared various ways: a lime marinade, a wine and soy sauce marinade, bacon wrapped. And all of it was delicious. It was amazing, some of the best food we'd had all summer. In fact it might have to be the best overall because of the fact that the men who cooked and ate it with us were the ones who killed the animals. On taste alone the salmon steaks that Dean, a man that visited several weeks ago, brought from Alaska were probably a bit better, but they didnt have the overall story that this meat did.

Anyway, the guys cooked meat they had hunted while sharing stories from hunting trips, several about Charles' dog Chester ("the greatest dog in the world!", for those of you who have seen Disney's 'The Kid') then we gathered around a fire to hear more of the personal side of what hunting means to these guys and why they do it, etc. We also got to hold and pass around several s that they had brought to show us.

As the men told stories and talked to us about different things related to s and hunting and shooting, Xan asked the four of us what we were thinking or feeling about all of it. Though I didn't use this word at the time, I described feeling a sense of reawakening to a love and a passion for s and this type of thing. I've never hunted before, nor had much desire, but I have shot s a bit and had some exposure to it all, but never gotten nearly as much as I wanted. And over the years I've always been interested in the subject, watching everything I could on the history channel and just learning about s and shooting. In fact that was one thing that was evident tonight, a couple of times actually.

One example is that though I wanted to hold and see all the s they had brought, I stopped at a particular one once I had it in my hands and never let go of it the entire night. After one or two , I was handed a that I quickly recognized as a Winchester repeater. I was in awe. This is one of my favorite s, there is so much history involved with it. I held it up, looked down the barrel, ed the lever several times, marveled at how light it was and admired how powerful it is despite not seeming that long. I told Campbell it was one of the s that ruled the Old West and in fact that if it had come out a few years earlier it would have had a significant impact on historical events like the Civil War. I loved how it looked and how it felt in my hands. I never really dreamed I would hold one, but now all I could think was that I had to own one, or at least shoot one sometime.

For some time now shooting has been on my mind a lot and even the idea of getting back into it regularly as soon as I can. This desire has been deepened and more solidified with these men coming tonight and sharing about themselves, about shooting and hunting, and especially with inviting us into it, drawing us into that world. Tonight was amazing, and I can only imagine, and can't wait to see all the rest of the things God has for my heart in this area, and in others over the rest of the summer.

clarity

Ok so, for those that arent familiar with all the characters from my previous blog, I realized from someone that I might need to explain a couple things as some people might not know: Xan and Cory are our leaders, Xan's wife is Jayne, and Christine is Cory's wife. Xuxa is Christine and Cory's dog, her name is pronounced shoo-sha. Sorry for any confusion, I trust this is all clear as mud now.

happy birthday America

So yesterday was the 4th of July. One of my favorite holidays, rivaled only by Christmas, which really tops the list. Anyway, it was a great day. We had off work of course, which was nice. Slept til noon which we all needed, then at breakfast together- pancakes, eggs, bacon, koolaid. Hung out at the cabin together for a bit, all of us- the four of us as well as Xan, Cory, their wives, and the dog. Then we got some gear and all piled into the back of Josh's truck and went up to the reservoir trailhead. We walked up to the first reservior and when we saw several people already fishing there we decided to keep going to the second, which was a good decision. When we finally got up to the lake and the far end of the second reservoir, we dropped our stuff and got started. Several people got their rods out to start getting fishing. Several of us though were admiring some rocks nearby which were high up the mountain behind us.

Several comments were made that we needed to climb those, at some point anyway, but it wasnt five minutes before Dan started off to do so, and Jayne was walking up there with him. I had Xuxa on her leash and was letting her walk around a bit before fishing and we got close to where Jayne and Dan were climbing up when Jayne yelled down to me asking if I wanted to come. 'Why not?' I figured and called back that I did, and then ran with the dog to catch up to them. They were excited that I was there, and so was I. We climbed for a couple hours roundtrip. It was amazing- we didnt quite get to the rocks we had seen from below, but we did get to some other rocks that were great. The big rocks we got to me and Dan got up ok but Jayne had some trouble because of her shoes. So Dan and I worked together to get her up- I layed down on the rock and braced myself with my legs while he held one of my hands and stood back, then I held out my other hand down to Jayne for her to grab on and come up. It felt pretty good, if I hadnt been there she probably wouldnt have been able to get up there. So we could see down on the others, but they couldnt see us that well. In fact, we saw them from the high point on the rock but I wanted to get onto an even higher bigger one behind it. So I got down and got between the two, finding tight but manageable places to wedge myself up and around. I even used several branches or fallen trees to pull myself up on. I finally got up and when I had good footing ran to the top of the rock and yelled down to the others again. When we had had our fill of the view and the rocks, we started back down.

So Xuxa had been ready to go back down for a while. She pretty much dragged me down the mountain, even though it was kinda steep in some places. And we actually got a bit off course going down; we were too far to the left and when we eventually got back to the road we were maybe a couple hundred yards back from the lake and the place we had started. But we got back ok to the others, and Xuxa was excited to see Christine. I didnt fish at all because we were leaving soon after we got back, but that was fine because the climb was so much fun as was the last thing I did before leaving.

Josh and I got our shirts and shoes off, climbed some rocks over the water, got to the top and leapt off into the water! It was so much fun, and the water wasnt nearly as cold as I expected. We climbed up, yelled Happy Birthday America, and jumped out into the lake. I jumped twice and Josh went three times- I wouldve gone again but it started thundering quite a bit just as I was going my second time. In fact I scraped my back on a rock as I was swimming to shore, just a scrape so not much blood, but more than I had before so it was nice. By the time we got dressed and found our shoes though, everyone had left Josh and I, so we pretty much jogged down the mountain. Dan waited for us part way though, so that was nice.

Anyway, we all got back to the cabin and grilled some great food, afterwhich we went down to town to see some of the festival and what was going on. Had a good time, walked around and came back after not too long. We watched the fireworks from the roof, which was great, they're supposed to be some of the best around. After Xan, Jayne, Cory, and Christine left, the four of us just chilled and watched Independence Day, a great 4th of July movie. It was an amazing day, lots of fun all around. In fact, it wasnt just yesterday, it was times around it too. Tuesday afternoon we got off early from work, then that night the four of us went out to a $1.50 movie theater we'd found. It was Tuesday so it was actually only 75 cents, but the best part is that we saw 300, my favorite movie which I've seen twice already. So we saw that awesome movie, had a great day yesterday, then this morning Campbell and I didnt have to work because our boss said he couldnt get in touch with any of our job sites, so to just have a good day. An amazing Independence Day, with a couple great days around it. Yeah. Sweet.