Some of us guys were talking about possibly shooting at Alton, Il. today a few days ago, but it's a heckuva drive for me -- not to mention I was going to drive right past a local shoot 30 miles from my house on the way up there... I was really questioning the sanity of such a decision when jmbuckhunter extended an invite to spend the night in northern St. Louis Friday night with him, so we would be only be 30 minutes or so away come Sunday morning.

You know how it is: You really appreciate great gestures like that, but with family and all the stuff that goes on with them as well as everything else, you've got to turn an offer like that down 99% of the time. Well, guess what? My wife left to go spend some time with her mother and sister in Mobile, AL., Wednesday and isn't due to return until tomorrow... leaving me free and in the clear to do whatever I wanted this weekend. Amazingly, this was probably the one weekend I had available to accept John's generous offer.

I got up early (begrudgingly, seeing as how I was home alone and could sleep in late) Saturday morning and drove over to Eddyville, IL., to a 3d shoot over there... A little rough start, but I ended up coming back strong to finish with a 299 on 30 targets. I'll find out if that was good enough to bring home any hardware Wednesday. From there, I drove on up to John's place...

I've got to take just a second and explain HOW nice his place is... a true sportsman's paradise as far as houses go. As soon as you walk into his house, you're staring up at a monster 6x6 elk that's beautifully captured in a great mount. A couple extremely nice largemouths and a nice pike seperate that from a beautiful 150-class buck. But downstairs... wow! A full-sized black bear sits in front of a huge wall mural depicting a serene woods scene, with a truly awesome whitetail mount walking out of the woods right into the floor! A gorgeous turkey is gliding in from above the bear, and that's just one wall!

Russian boars, coyotes, raccoons, bobcats, squirrells, another turkey, a red fox, more deerand other crittersare perfectly positiond aroundthe room so as to totally envelope the visitor. It was simply an awesome viewing experience!

John and I went and grabbed a steak and made the obligatory trip to Cabela's later to walk off the lobster and shrimp dip before coming home and hitting the sack. What a fun day, and what an awesome host! Thanks so much for the invite John; I had a blast and enjoyed shooting with you and Don today!!

Oh, and this sure didmake the drive back home a lot more tolerable!!



Thanks again bud!