Vegas Vacation

This weekend I attended the Industry Masters Shoot in good old Las Vegas (this is the PR trip that I did all the crazy shopping/tailoring for). We weren't going to be there very long, in fact barely two days. We flew in Friday afternoon and met up with my buddy Collyn in the airport. Talk about a freak show!!! Ok well maybe not exactly a freak show, but it was certainly a hyped up "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" atmosphere. While Buddy (our marketing director) was getting the rental car paperwork, Collyn and I wen to the little ticket booth to see if we could find cheap tickets to a show. "Cheap" is not a word that exists in the Las Vegas vocabulary. It was ok though since there wouldn't really be any time to watch one.

We picked up the car and started heading towards our hotel which was only 8 miles away. After missing several turns and heading in the wrong direction for 15 minutes, we decided that the security guard had given us VERY poor instructions. In the end, it took us over an hour and one stop at a starbucks (which, by the way, are EVERYWHERE in Vegas) to get to the hotel, and not because of traffic. If you know anything about Vegas, you know that they make it VERY easy to get to the strip and spend your money. We, however, were not staying on the strip, but out in the middle of the desert. It turned out to be ok though; the hotel was nice and had all the amenities you could want (casino, pool, bowling alley, cinema, restaraunts, etc.) all attached.

Friday night we headed down to the pool for the reception to mingle with all the industry big wigs. We ran into the owner of Smith & Wesson, the director of the Great Outdoor Games, and the director of the National Shooting Sports Foundation to name a few. It was your typical reception; bad finger food, watered down drinks, and amuzing company. Anyway, the evening wrapped up pretty quickly since we had to be up early to head to the range in the morning.

Saturday was an interesting day. We got to the range early, got all signed up and ready to go. The course of fire included 10 stations of sporting clays, 25 shots benched rifel, 25 shots standing rifle, and 10 runs on the pistol course. Since Collyn and I hadn't shot the rifle or pistol events before, we were a little nervous. We lucked out though and started with the sporting clays event. Collyn whooped up and had the highest score in the event. I shot ok, but should have started with a different gun. (Oh yeah! We had to borrow guns since no one told us to bring them.) After sporting clays was over, we headed to the clubhouse for lunch. Bag lunches go down quickly, so there was a little time for the knitting (Woohoo!) And YES! I Knit in public.

Our second event for the day was rifle. You'd think I'd be somewhat comfortable with a rifle since I shoot shotguns regularly, but NOOOOOO! I was so nervous. These rifles looked like crazy mercenary guns or something. Buddy and John explained to us how to hold and aim the rifles. The first 25 shots were benched, and proved to be relatively easy. In fact, fun...almost. And then we had to stand for 25 shots. Boy was that tough to hold still AND see through the stinking scopes. Turns out, I had the heaviest gun of them all. The guns really didn't have much recoil, they were just awkward to hold. I did pretty well for being the first time shooting a big fat rifle like that. Next up, Pistol!

The pistol event wasn't your average shoot at a paper target and get scored. You got 10 runs of six shots to shoot down 5 steel plates. For every plate left standing, time was added to your total time. It was so strange holding this little pistol out in front of me with nothing to steady it. Needless to say this was my worst event. I was lucky if I hit 2 of the 5 plates in each of my runs. It didn't help that I had 3 people trying to tell me to do different things (none of which worked.) Anyway, it was a good learning experience, and maybe with a little practice I could be a LOT better. When everyone finished their three events, we all headed back to the hotel to change and get ready for the awards ceremony and dinner.

After dinner, I roamed around the casino and spent a good $25 on the Star Wars slots. :o) I know I'm a dork, but they looked the most fun. At one point I was up $15 and should have quite, but I didn't and so I have nothing to show for my money. That's the way of Vegas though. I meandered through the rest of the casino to see what all they had, and ended up heading back to the room to pack and go to sleep. Early the next morning we flew home. My whirl wind weekend in Vegas was a nice little adventure without losing too much of my per diem. It is good to be home and watching football with my man!