They just keep coming around, don't they? I suppose that beats the alternative, though.
We've been out & done some shopping - wife & younger daughter to Sam's Club, and I to Sportsman's Warehouse, which is quickly becoming a favorite haunt. I was very heavily into recreational shooting (which I've been doing since the age of 6, at my father's side) up until about six years ago. That's when we started preparing for our move up here.
The drive to Alaska required us to spend four days and nights in Canada, which was a nice experience whereby we met some delightful people. However, their gun laws, being so much more restrictive, made me wary of trying to transport an entire gun safe & contents across the border. Rather than go through all the paperwork hoops, I decided to sell or give away all of my guns, ammo, and other supplies.
What with one thing or another, I never got around to starting up again until this past Christmas. Now I get to re-supply, which is fun for me.
The weather here is just below zero, and Accu-Hunch is still guessing we'll get as high as 15 today, with light snow moving in ... perhaps to the tune of a few inches by tomorrow. Nothing major, but the north wind is rather raw. After the last two weeks, we've acclimated somewhat to the severe cold, and don't need terribly heavy coats. Any exposed skin, however, still pays the price.
So I picked up a shoulder rig and some safety glasses. With the weather returning to normal, I can finally schedule a visit to the local range & see how my new pistol behaves.
I've had some nice conversations with my old friend in Missouri - the one who was best man at our wedding, lo these many moons ago - and it seems he & his new wife want to come see us. That will be nice.
Not so many folks want to visit here in the winter, thinking that it's perpetual night, and frigid. Well, they're wrong: it's not dark. After the last two weeks, however, I'm not so sure they're wrong about the frigid part.
The perception that we have ice and snow year-round is false, of course. You've seen lots of pictures of the greenery which I've posted. Our summers are rather short, but very green and lush due to the long days (22 hours of sunlight in June). And we don't live in an igloo. Nor do we have a pet moose or polar bear. And when we run low on gas, we don't tap into the pipeline. It doesn't have gasoline in it, anyway ...
So we're happy to hear that someone wants to visit while it's white outside. It will be nice to get reacquainted with Dana, and get to know Sandi-with-an-i. (She made sure to mention that to me, so I'm reproducing it here.)
It's starting to look grey and snowy out there, so I'm going to wrap this up & try to do something productive with my afternoon.
Don't be a stranger - come on back!
John 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
4 comments:
I shipped my guns from Alaska back to the lower 48 when I left there. Then, when I decided to come back to Florida for good I either sold or give away every piece that I had...and it was just a couple of years ago that I started to collect them again. Sure would like to have that artillery I had up there at North Pole..some heavy duty stuff
Funny thing is, I had a lot of black powder firearms - rifles & pistols - among my collection in Missouri. Since I got here, I have no interest in doing that anymore. Of course, you can kill a deer with black powder, but a brown bear is a bit trickier, and I like the idea of having a LOT more follow-up shots in a hurry.
I kinda made an agreement with the bears...I didn't hunt them unless they were hunting ME
I agree - the best kind of bear is the one you never see. There were bear attacks in Anchorage last year, though, for the first time. A wolf pack attacked some folks and/or their dogs, too. It's prudence, not desire, that prompts the addition of a pistol to our hiking gear. We will also stay the heck away from streams, especially in spawning season.
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