I made it to the big Sandy machine gun shoot

These are all quiet pictures, but the next few days you may have to wear hearing protection just to click the pics.

My free boondocking spot at a gift shop parking lot just outside the gate to the Petrified Forest National Park. As usual my pictures have nothing to do with my blog post because the pictures are from yesterday. But the shooting will start tomorrow and I'll have something to take a picture of then.

I made it to the Big Sandy Machine-Gun Shoot just after lunch today. I got checked in, and found myself a boondocking spot which was easy considering I'm the only camper here at the moment, but I'm sure that will change by this afternoon.

Once I turned off the pavement, which was Highway 93 in Arizona, I didn't realize it at the time, but I had about 10 miles of beat-up, washboard dirt road before I got to the gun range. Fortunately, I'm used to Colorado driving because the road was also a mountain road with steep hills and sharp turns, and yes, some pretty steep drop-offs, and about four dry washes that look like they would be impassable after it rains.... I've got my fingers crossed it doesn't rain.

But I'm here, and that's what counts. They won't be doing any shooting until tomorrow, so I have time to relax and think about how lucky I am to be in a place like this where only certified card-carrying gun nuts.... Like myself, will likely enjoy being on this desolate, desert mountainside, watching other people shoot cannons.

 I always talk about not liking to have a schedule or make reservations, much preferring to come and go as I please, and I think this is a good example of how I feel.... I want to be here at the shoot, I've been looking forward to coming here, and I'm happy now that I'm here, BUT! I'm also very happy and looking forward to not having any other place I want or need to be this winter because after I leave here, I can go anyplace I want and stay as long as I want, which to me is freedom.

The Internet here, needless to say, is exceptionally weak and slow. So I don't know if I will have any useful Internet once many people get here and start using it. So if I drop off the scope for a couple of days, I'll be posting again as soon as I get somewhere resembling civilization.

                                                             Theboondork

This is why it's not wise to steal petrified trees from the Petrified Forest National Park.

It's all pretty to look at but its not really good for anything. You can't farm it, you can't raise cattle on it, and there's no gold or silver.... It's just pretty to look at.

These sedimentary formations are called the Teepees. There were Indians living here thousands of years ago, and some still do... Just not the same ones.

Most people would call this the Badlands sense its not good for much of anything, and yet the Native Americans make a living here. Even today this place is about as harsh and desolate as a land can get, what must it have been like a thousand years ago? I guess we don't really know the meaning of harsh and desolate, but the people that lived here did, and they still managed to survive and raise their families.