Full Saturday

---

May 13

Today We spent the morning at the Rabbit Creek Rifle Range. On weekends they open the skeet range. We had been looking forward to this since learning it was available. Maria has zero experience with shotguns, and this is a good place to start. We chose the 20 gauge over-and-unders instead of the 12 gauge, out of consideration for our shoulders. The program calls for 25 shots and I don’t think I have ever fired a shotgun 25 times in one day. Six or eight shots on a dove hunt, or three or four shots on a quail hunt was about the max.

The operating and safety briefing from the range employee were excellent. The shotguns had a little safety mechanism which automatically reset itself to safe with each opening of the breech. We had to push this forward to unlock the trigger before calling ”pull” or risk embarrassment of having tried to fire the gun on safe. Both of us forgot several times. But Maria developed a sly technique to cover her faux pas. The range operator had briefed us that we did not have to fire at every clay that flew. If we didn’t have a good sight picture, we could just let it fly without firing. So after a couple of embarrassed “I forgot to take off the safety” non-fires, Maria began pretending she had purposely let the pigeon fly without firing, then surreptitiously slipped off the safety and called “pull” again. She didn’t think at the time that anyone noticed, and in fact is laughing about it now as I tell her what I’m typing. “It’s true,” she says, “I love you.”

We missed more than we hit. I was leading them too much, according to the operator, and Maria was firing behind them. One great thing about their setup is that they have six different throwing positions which fling the clay pigeons in six different directions. Maria found her best success with one which flew toward us, having less of a crossing angle than the others.

This afternoon we went into Anchorage. Today is the first day of the open air market which will run on weekends throughout the summer. Our landlord has abooth selling Russian items, the fellow I bought the .44 magnum from has a stall selling his wildlife photography. There were several other extremely interesting booths. Several had native American creations (the term Eskimo is not favored here; Native Alaskan, Aleut or Athabascan or whichever group as applicable - not easy getting it right.) Last weekend in Cantwell, I had offered Maria a thousand dollars if she could identify something hanging on the wall. She didn’t know what it was. I had then offered Scott $15, I think, if he could name it. Of course, he did. Baleen. Today we saw more baleen art, and I offered Maria $15 if she could remember the word. The man selling it, whose native wife had made it, was aching to tell her the answer. He also thought I had offered her too little and was calling me a cheapskate. He’s right, but his conclusion was based on insufficient evidence.

There is art made from various types of ivory, and even wooly mammoth remains. I would have been skeptical about the wooly mammoth items, but we had just watched a documentary on the subject and was aware that these items are available. The best and most reasonably priced ivory carvings were made by a white man, not a native. I will probably buy some of his work on a future visit. There was also a fellow selling fossils, sharks teeth from 10,000 years ago, and many very interesting types of rocks. He also had wooly mammoth remains. Not only do I plan to buy from him, but may fish with him as well. More on this later, I hope.

Inga’s Russia booth was so busy that we didn’t stop to say hello. Her booth has the good fortune to be right next to a main entrance, but the misfortune to be adjacent to the “music.” It is a continuing mystery to me why people seem to believe that volume will make up for lack of talent or virtuosity. Maria was ready to pay the performers to take a break. A long one.

---

Photos

Pull
Maria draws a bead on a clay target.