All Quiet on the Western Front -- NOT

We have now spent over a week here at the NRA Whittington Center.  It’s a beautiful, serene landscape with lots of wildlife like this beautiful buck wandering through the RV park.

We were amazed to see this mule deer doe nursing her fawn right beside the road, accompanied by her friend, who had twins.

Antelope are everywhere as well,

including this female with her triplets that John photographed out his window.

The dogs have enjoyed watching the deer and antelope parading through our campground.  A couple of days ago, two mule does were browsing in the live oak thicket just across the road from our camp sight, only about 30 yards from where we were sitting.  Rue watched and watched; and then she started to quiver.  A few seconds later, she couldn’t stand it and rushed to the end of her 15-foot tie-out.  Surprisingly, she hit the end hard enough to pull the stake out of the ground, and she was bounding toward the deer.  At about the second jump, I told her to lie down, and she dropped like a stone.  The does continued to browse, and Rue watched quietly until they drifted away.  I was very proud of her.

You will notice that I didn’t say this was a quiet place.  It can be, but between sunup and sundown there is a lot of activity on the 18 different firearm ranges.  John just completed the Whittington U Practical Pistol II course, and there are a number of individuals like us here to relax and hone our shooting skills.  There are also a number of different events going on.  The Long Range Magnum Rifle Match, Small Bore Silhouette National Championship and High Power Silhouette Nationals have just concluded, and this week the Cowboy Lever Action National Silhouette Championship is going on.  

Each competitor has a spotter, who looks through binoculars to verify that the target has been downed, or to tell the shooter where his round went so he can adjust his aim.

We have met some of the competitors and have enjoyed watching some of the matches.  Several states are represented; these guys are from Fort Worth, and we hope they did well.

Men aren’t the only competitors, you will notice.  Several of the shooters were women.  This woman hit 10 targets in a row, quite an accomplishment at this distance.

But quiet it is not.  It’s not loud, mind you, unless you are close to one of the ranges, but in the background during the daylight hours, you can hear the pop-pop-pop of the firearms and the ping-ping-ping of rounds hitting the silhouette targets.  Colt doesn’t react to the noise at all.  Kota is another story; she spends most of her time inside the rig.  She isn’t visibly anxious inside, but if asked to go for a walk when she can hear gunshots, she not-so-politely declines.  That means she plants all four feet and refuses to move unless in the direction of our RV.  If she is outside chewing a bone, however, she doesn’t seem anxious at all.  Rue isn’t especially reactive unless she is close to the “action.”  We’re working on acclimating her to the noise, bolstering her confidence with treats and praise.  

We have made new friends here.  Right next door were Joshua and his sidekick, Yorkshire Terrier Missy Roo, who was sporting her summer cut.

Joshua and his wife live in Temple, TX.  He has been attending an introductory course in gunsmithing in nearby Trinidad, NM, and hopes to enroll next spring for their two-year program.  We’ve enjoyed talking firearms and life lessons with him and wish him well if he pursues a retirement career as a gunsmith.  

And speaking of guns, we have taken advantage of the opportunities here for refreshing our firearms skills.  Thursday and Friday mornings we took the shotguns to the Sporing Clays course.  You shoot from little cages like this one.  

At each station, you can try to hit two targets (or even both any once—NOT) that come from different directions.  We bagged a few clays, but not enough for supper.  

In the afternoons we usually shoot our pistols.  There are several ranges where you can shoot from whatever distance you like. 

I was shooting my Sig 9 mm, but decided to try the Browning High Power 9 mm that John had brought as a backup to his Sig 40 cal.  

I think I’m shooting better with the Browning, so will continue to experiment with both of them.

The weather here has been a much-welcome change from the 100+ degree temperatues we left in Central Texas (and which have climbed as high as 114 earlier this week).  On Thursday our low was 59, and our high was 87.  We have had afternoon thunderstorms the last several days.  This is what one looked like rolling in on Monday.

The thunder makes Kota and Rue a little anxious, but they are fine as long as they are inside and near John and me.

We have had a great time here, but are looking forward to moving on to Colorado tomorrow.  We'll keep you posted as we travel and look forward to hearing from everyone.