A Full Day at Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Arizona

Yesterday was our big day at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility just North of Phoenix. As I mentioned in my last Blog, we were scheduled to spend a long day at one of the largest dedicated shooting and training facilities in the U.S. Since we were informed they had a campground, we decided it would give us a chance to take the Motorhome for needed exercise and spend the night right at the facility. Friday by 10:00am, we were cruising down the highway on a beautiful day with Ms. Pat in the co-pilot seat and Ms. Megabyte2 curled up in my recliner. It was a wonderful day and a great day to travel. I was just getting warmed up when we arrived at our destination. Wow!!   60 miles and I didn’t want to stop yet. I could have easily have driven 600 miles. :-)


By noon we had arrived at “Shooters Campground”, paid the fee, found our campsite and gotten all settled in. There were only a few other campers here and the campsites were huge with 50 amp Electric and Water hook ups at each site.. This is a BIG PLACE, over 1500 acres.  Aw, some time to sit back and relax a little before our big day tomorrow that starts early, like at 7:00am. NOPE, time to run into the big city and hit Costco, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Sam’s and WalMart, etc. We didn’t even make it home by Happy Hour and man we hit some outrageous traffic……..5:30 before we got back to the Campsite but we had accomplished a lot.

We had all our shopping done and saved us a separate trip.  Now thankfully, we won’t have to come back to this terrible traffic for a while, I hope! We are spoiled, living way out in the quiet country like we do…..that 80mph, 10 lane, bumper to bumper traffic about drives me bonkers…Whew!

With a good night's sleep, we were up and ready to go at 7:00am. There were 40 people signed up for this class and they fill up weeks in advance.. We spent all morning in the classroom learning all types of Arizona laws and procedures, along with safety procedures, safe gun handling, sight alignment and even some gun cleaning tips.  We had a 45 minute break at lunch time and were instructed to show up at the pistol range with 100 rounds of ammunition.


After a couple hours of closely supervised hands on gun handling instructions and several different shooting scenarios at the range, we went straight back to the classroom for more training.  We were both so busy we didn’t have time to get any pictures of us all shooting. The final shoot was for qualification. Ms. Pat shot right ahead of me. I knew she would put the pressure on and she did!  Shot 100% with about a 3” pattern. The instructor was quite impressed and complimented her and told her “Excellent”!  Ugh, now that really put the pressure on me! I told myself I was going to beat her.  Wow, now I can only “tie” her……but could I do that?  She never slacks up……. she is trying to make me nervous and she succeeded.  I was nervous. I tried to calm down, you know, deep breaths and all that.

Now wait a minute, I’ve done this a zillion times.  Why should I be nervous?  I thought..."she has been shooting more than me, my eyes aren’t what they used to be, etc., etc."  Hmmm...excuses, excuses.  :-) Anyhow, I got myself relaxed a little and went up and shot 100%.  Whew.....I must have got lucky, my pattern was even a “little” closer than hers...not much but a little! 

Now the last exercise was the final qualification 22 question TEST.  Oh, I hate tests……..and you had to pass.  Ms. Pat flew through hers and wouldn’t let me see any of her answers.   Darn!.  :-)  A couple of questions were confusing and worded poorly in my opinion.  I knew she would get 100% on this test too, so I had to be careful and bear down.  I finally finished and turned it in to the instructors for grading.  I was getting tired, it had been a long day…….

This is Ken, Head Instructor, and owner of “Gun’s Plus”, a large Gun store in Surprise,AZ. He was very impressed and happy with Ms. Pat and congratulated her in getting 100% on both her qualification shoot and the final test.  Nice job, Girl.  You can bet I am proud of this gal !!


Yep, ole' Ken was even proud of me, as I also managed to get 100% on both.  Whew....that Gal really puts the pressure on me, big time!!   Oh yeah, I forgot to mention they had a drawing and Ms. Pat won a Gun's Plus T-shirt. 

By 5:30 when the class was dismissed, both of us were beat and tired. Sure glad we had our home nearby.  In two minutes, we were home relaxing in our easy chairs.


Soon after we got home, I noticed a few balloons on the horizon just before sundown. There were half a dozen balloons but I could only get these two.

It was a  beautiful Sunset and you can just barely see one of the balloons coming into the picture.  Now I’ll bet those folks in that Balloon have some kind of a view!!


But it doesn’t get much better than this!!!

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!

Today, we are getting ready to travel the 60 miles back home and unload everything we loaded up, plus the big supply of groceries and necessities we bought in the Big city!! Through all of this, Ms. Megabyte2 just doesn’t know what to think!!  But she is still her lovable cute little self.....continuing to enhance our lives to no end!!

Thanks for stopping by....drop back Wednesday if you can.  Meanwhile God Bless you all!!


Mike

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