Guns

After breakfast this morning, Jason offered to let us shoot on the range in his backyard from his office. I’ve never shot before so I jumped on the offer. I got to try a rifle, a Ruger 10/22, with a target 30 yards away. I got the clay targets with most of the rounds so I was very proud of myself. It was a funny setup shooting out the window but he had a silencer so as not to disturb the neighbors. I kept two casings to make earrings out of later.

He then ran us around to do our town errands, which was very generous and made it much easier. We didn’t get back to the trail until almost 3:30 so we decided to night hike later to still get some miles in, and also for Stretch and I to test our new headlamps. Jason hiked with us until the top of Cold Mountain and we hung out there for a while with great views. So many hikers showed up, it was strange seeing such a large group. We then said goodbye and kept moving.

After filling up on water near a meadow later, we decided to try to make it to  a view on Tar Jacket Ridge for sunset and dinner. We found the view but it was facing the wrong way so we hiked a little more before stopping to cook. By the time we were done, it was dark and time to night hike.  We did 12.1 miles total today, almost half of it after dark. It was pretty neat: cooler temperature, very quiet and still.