I knew almost nothing about shooting skeet. Today we moved across the Sea Wind RV Park from the overflow area to a ringside seat on the park’s skeet range. Around noon I noticed a couple pickups had parked and two men were busy tuning up some weird looking Frisbee throwers. I fired up my computer and looked up skeet on the internet. I began reading and by the time another dozen or so shooters had shown up I had a pretty good idea of what it was all about. I had learned this is not a full sized range. It is missing a couple shooting stations, there is supposed to be eight, and one of the skeet machines is supposed to be ten feet off the ground.
About noon there were probably 16 shooters set up in the ready area and the range officer started lining up the shooting order. The guns were neatly racked up and the skeet machines were all dialed in to throw their clay targets exactly 60 feet in a crossing pattern from opposite corners of the range semicircle. The first man up stepped up and at his call two targets arched across the infield and he deftly dispatched both. He shot perhaps a dozen straight targets before he missed one. I am thinking, yeah this is probably not that easy, but he sure makes it look easy. That prediction proved to be correct. There were all levels of skill in the group. One fellow used up his 25 shells as he advanced around the six stations and had only broken two or three targets. These guys ranged from young (relative term, anyone younger than I am, is “young”) to some real geezers. Now no one was using a walker, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. I did join the spectator group standing around admiring the fancy guns for a while.
Now I don’t expect to get involved in the sport, but as we travel it is interesting how often we get an opportunity to see something entirely new. Like Bluegrass in Arizona, the tractor pulls in Nova Scotia, the horse and oxen pulls in Main and the bicycle race in San Jose. I think it is good, as we experience this journey called life, to be open to new ideas, new experiences and new people.
Today the sun returned and we were able to get out our tandem bicycle and have a nice ride. We were able to locate a Geocache about five miles away on the shore of Laguna Salada. No that is not a fancy name for a three bean salad. It is a body of water, a lagoon, and it is salty. We also caught a glimpse of a roseate spoonbill flying overhead. I didn’t get a photo, but Judy did take a photo of an unusual wildflower with both yellow and pink flowers in the same cluster.
Once again we say adios from near Kingsville Texas right on the Gulf Coast.
Gary and Judy
