Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns A great trip...

Well finally had a glitch in the trip... A couple of hours after leaving Travis' house the stone guard on the trailer stripped out all the screws on one side from all the wind buffeting. Stopped in a hardware and got some c-clamps to hold it in place until it could be properly modified but it slowed down the trip to P Weed's by a couple of hours....





Other than that the ride across Montana and North Dakota to PW's house in W. Fargo was very nice...except of course for the headwind that cut mileage down to 9 mpg...

PW and his wife made me feel right at home. Tuesday we worked on the trailer in the morning to get it road ready again...



We cut the stone guard and then glued and screwed all the metal back in place and then taped every thing over...



After lunch it started raining and blowing so there was no shooting for that day. Wednesday was beautiful and PW took me to a friend place out in the country...an old deer and shooting camp...





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Had a great time banging a way at some steel gongs set up at 100 yards...

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Left PW's at 0245 Thursday morning. Was across Minnesota by 1000 and into Wisconsin.





Could not face taking the highways through the Chicago area so went to Detroit via the UP...just beautiful up there. This is Lake Michigan just before the bridge to lower Michigan...

It was cloudy and some rain...







The trailer repair help up fine and I was able to drive until running out of steam about 2000 Thursday night...figured 18 hours of straight driving was enough... Slept till 0330 and continues south on I-75 till getting past Detroit and to I-90 in Toledo. Took one more nap before getting to my aunt's in Buffalo at 1500.

Will be here for a couple of more days before heading home... The trip is about over...10K on the truck and almost 3K on the bike...but the memories will last for a long time...

Bob

Bob's as good with a Saws-All as he is with a handgun, steady and straight, as he repaired his trailer guard.

We enjoyed his being our guest and he didn't seem to mind sleeping on the floor and mostly eating out.

The handguns he brought and shared are fantastic - I have never actually seen, let alone fired a Freedom Arms or USFA SA Revolver before.

Bob was charitable enough to show me what is a proper hold, stance, etc. for basic handgun shooting.
I was borderline pathetic - but you got to start somewhere.

RJM, like his 1911, is A1

Great trip.. My wife has family near the bridge in upper Mich.. We just came though there is Aug... Beautiful country.. Plan to make a bird hunting trip though that country next Oct.

Well I made it home... After spending the weekend with my aunt, uncle and cousin I took off at 0430 yesterday from Buffalo. I was going to just take I-90 the whole way back to NH but instead opted to take the shorter in miles but slightly longer in time route through the back roads. It was a nice drive and the leaves are changing...

There were no further problems with the trailer. Total mileage on the truck from driveway to driveway was 9837 miles....about $3200 in fuel. Was gone from July 15th till October 6th and only spent two nights in hotels. The rest was spent with family, friends or camping out. In addition there was another 2900 miles put on the motorcycle....

The trip could have happened without friends, but friends are what turned a "trip" into a "trip of a lifetime". Last year I said to I believe Mackay something about welcoming a stranger into his home and treating them like family. His reply was "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet".

So to all my old friends and new friends who made this trip so fantastic I say thank you. And to the rest of you out there, if you have the chance to make a CF friend, do it. You have a lot to gain and little to loose...

The Harley-Davidson folks say it isn't the destination but the journey. I think it is the friends one makes along the way that really counts.

Bob

Great thread!

Awesome!!!

Have been unpacking and cleaning since I got home Monday evening...have a Pa. muzzle loader hunt coming next weekend and it will be off on the road again...

Emptied all the empty brass out and these two piles were .41 Magnum...





The large pile is Winchester brass and loaded with the Berry's 210 plated bullet shot from the S&W revolvers and 255 Cast Performance that were shot through the FA 654. The smaller pile was R-P brass and has 210-250 grain home cast lead bullets.

There were also two quart baggies of .41 Special brass and I went through 100-150 rounds of .22 Magnum in the USFA Flat Top Target and the S&W Model 63 with the extra .22 Magnum cylinder. Only fired a few .22 Long Rifle rounds from some of my friend's guns but probably no more than 50 rounds.

Rifle wise did about 150 rounds of .308 and maybe 30 rounds of .223....

...now back to cleaning...Bob

...well had a strange thing happen today related to the trip. When I was at Freedom Arms in September I purchased a hat, 6 .41 Snap-Caps and two FO front sight blades of different heights. When I got home a month later the 6 snap caps were still in my carry bag but one of the FO front sight blades was missing... I figured that it must have fallen out during the trip one of the times I took the checkbook wallet or my sunglasses out of the bag...

Well hunting season is coming up and I wanted to use my Gary Reeder Custom .41 but needed a shorter FO front sight blade than the two I had...so I called FA and explained to the lady what I needed and that I had bought two in September but only one made it home... And she said..."you know where your FO blade is...?" An employee had found it in the parking lot two months ago and it had been sitting on her filing cabinet waiting for someone to claim it.... This morning when she was dusting she found it and had given it to the person who found it to put back into stock...

So it and a even shorter one are in route...

In another stroke of luck just after I got back from vacation my TS AXIOM .22 suppressor came in. While shooting it the first time I managed to misplace the thread protector on the CZ452 .22 rifle... Searched everywhere but never found it. This morning went out to the driveway where my truck is usually parked but because it was in the shop the spot was vacant...and sitting there was the,,,thread protector. How it never got run over is anyones guess...

Maybe it is the day to buy a lotto ticket...

Bob

Lost and found storys are always good - - at my age!

..it gets stranger...

Last year when I went out to visit Mackay I brought a very nice dive watch from ASP with me...the second day out there it quit running... I get home 5 weeks later...and it starts running again...

This year as I am leaving on the trip I was going to take a selfwinding automatic with me but decide to take the ASP with me again as it has tritium illumination.....and when I get out there...it fogs up and QUITS AGAIN. Took it to a jeweler in Buhl, Idaho who pulls the strap off and what does he see stocking out of the back...the very fine o-ring seal. The seal was fine before I left...could it have been the altitude?

Jeweler checks the battery and it shows fine...still will not work...

I get home and bring it to a friend whose father was a jeweler and leave it with him... He unscrews the back puts in a new battery and IT WOKS JUST FINE...

It is the last time I bring a watch to Idaho....

Bob

It's a clue telling you that time doesn't matter when you are on vacation in God's country!

The Idaho Triangle?