It's no secret that I am a fan of Summer. And Spring. And Fall. Well, to be more accurate, I just don't like Winter. But every now and then, Summer gets on my bad side too.
This past Sunday, we invited Checkered Flag over for an afternoon of shooting and grilling. Since we hadn't shot together for a while, we planned to make up for that with lots of activities. I loaded all the target gear into the car — the PVC stands for large paper targets, the standard USPSA targets and stands, the steel targets, and even the shotgun clay target stands. There was hardly room in the car for guns and ammo after all that.
We knew there was a line of storms coming in from the West, but hoped we could beat them. Arriving at the range, we set up target stands and started loading up magazines. No sooner did we finish those preparations, did we hear thunder in the distance. Checking the Spark alerts on our iPhones, we saw that the lightening strikes were 24 miles away. Then 19. Then 2.4. Time to leave! We quickly loaded everything back into the car and headed home.
We pulled into the garage just as the storm hit. A few minutes later our power went out. With shooting plans kiboshed, there was but one thing to do. I grabbed a flashlight and headed for the beer fridge. Opening the door only briefly, I quickly found a bottle of Fox Barrel Pear Cider. We enjoyed that in the dark while the grill heated up in preparation for a stack of thick porterhouse steaks.
Fox Barrel Pear Cider is made from pear, obviously, rather than the traditional apples, with the addition of honey, orange peel and coriander. (Sorry no picture, the lights were out.) The flavor was very light. I didn't notice much in the way of the spices, just a mild pear flavor. I prefer a more robustly flavored cider, but the cold and bubbly drink was very refreshing. I did work up a sweat at the range just from unloading and loading the gear in the high temperature and humidity, so the cold cider was a welcome relief.
The cider and steaks didn't make up for the missed shooting opportunity, but they came close.
Well, and least there was good food and drink.
ReplyDeleteActually, if there is continuous cloud cover that has lightening in it it can strike anywhere under the cloud cover, even if the major strikes are elsewhere. We lost a GPS antenna and receiver and a tripod that way. Fortunately, the observer was just knocked flat.