The Pittmeister's Parade Around America

Mrs. Pitt and I spent most of the holiday weekend camping at Parker Canyon Lake . We used The Professor and Momma Pitt's tent trailer camper because otherwise it would spend another weekend in disuse. My sister and her Albanian husband joined us for the camping trip & I like to think we had a great time. We hiked around the lake, cooked dinner outside on a Webber Smokey Joe barbecue grill, and enjoyed the music of a wedding party, slyly titled, "Catch of a Lifetime".

I've always loved hiking. Well, I can't really say "always loved". There were times in my life when I thought hiking was a struggle. When I was younger and our Webelos den leader organized monthly hikes for us to go on, I was always in the back, hiking just ahead of the den leader and when we finally did catch up to the lead group, who were resting, they'd all want to start moving again. As a Boy Scout, I avoided backpacking and hiking as much as could, but always wanted to go Philmont Scout Ranch , which I did in 1997. Again, I was alway at the back of the group, hiking with one of our adult leaders and his son. The only time I led was on the first day when I was the designated leader and I felt like everyone was breeding down my neck, urging me to hike at a pace I was uncomfortable with. In college , hiking became an activity for physical fitness. I hated going to the student recreation center to spend 30 minutes to 1 hour on an exercise machine (the ellipt...

I have discovered that many people own guns here in Bisbee and they enjoy shooting those guns for target practice. On any given day, I can hear gun fire from an old Army range on the other side of some hills not far from our house. Some days the gun fire is so constant, one could argue that the Mexican army is attempting to invade and take back land they sold as part of the Gadsen Purchase .  Today my curiosity got the better of me so after Wife and I came back from ACE Homecenter to buy some paint (more about my thoughts on blissful domesticity in a future post), I drove over to find this range. Thankfully I was guided by the sounds of gun fire and found it fairly easily.  The range isn't much of a range in the conventional sense . It resembles more of the out-of-the-way gravel pits around Flagstaff where the locals go to shoot their guns off. There are shot gun and bullet casings spread all of the ground combined with various household items that had been us...