What a week-end

So Friday night, I'd just returned home from work and was about to rack out for the night, anticipating a nice, restful Saturday, when my phone rang. A friend had called to tell me that he couldn't meet me at a shooting class that I was supposed to be helping teach on Saturday...in Harrisburg, PA.
Damn! I'd forgotten the date and thought that the class was NEXT week-end. And here it was, 10:30 PM the night before. So I threw a few things together and packed a range bag, then hit the hay for about 4 hours of sleep. Getting up even earlier than I normally did for work, I tossed my bag and Lagniappe in the van and off we went.
Oh--and I mention that I needed to be in Clarksburg, WV on Sunday to pick up a new gun?
So Lagniappe and I drove north with the rising sun. We passed through Gettysburg and like a fool, I went through town to get something from the battlefield visitor center. Big mistake--town was crowded with a bunch of can't-drive-for-shit tourists with out-of-state tags--and the insane traffic jam that I hit docked me a fair bit of time and got my stress level up. And then I lost more time as I happened to glance into a lot next to the highway sough of Harrisburg only to spot...a World War Two German Tiger Tank?!

I had to exit, turn around, and go back to look again. To paraphrase that annoying little Warner Brothers bird: "I did! I did taw a Tiger tank!"
Actually, upon close inspection, it turned out not to be a Tiger tank (Those are incredibly rare today) but a well-done mock-up on a Russian T-34 tank chassis. (The Christie-type suspension was a dead give-away, and the "armor" and "gun barrel" on this one turned out to be made of wood and thin metal. Nice replica, but who would do such a thing to a perfectly good T-34?! It appears to belong to Michael Sunday Heavy Equipment, Inc. (Phone: 717-432-2834). There were also several eastern-bloc artillery pieces there, but all appeared to be incomplete and definitely non-functional. Still, that cost me more time.

But we finally got to the class just as things were getting set on the range, and spent the day with a long-time friend of mine who is also one of the finest firearms and self-defense instructors in America today: Massad Ayoob.
Mas teaches a great 40+ hour course on self-defense with firearms. He's also the author of many regular gun magazine columns and several books, including In the Gravest Extreme, which is still a must-read for anyone owning a handgun for self-defense.
And here's Mas and Lagniappe after class. I'd planned to head over towards Clarksburg but decided to have dinner with Mas and didn't get clear until well after dark. So Lagniappe and I spent the night in a PA Turnpike service plaza near Somerset and finished the drive this morning.








Since we had all day and as it was a beautiful sunny morning, we drifted and took back roads. Here's a nifty covered bridge that we found on the way down.










Then I stopped next to a field full of cows so that Lagniappe could bark at them. This particular cow wasn't impressed, however.




We got home a couple of hours ago and dined on red beans and rice. Now I have to clean out the van and do my laundry. I can't believe that I have to go back to work again tomorrow already! Argh!