Last week Chris and I had the unique opportunity to go with his mom (Patsy) and step dad (David) to a little place in the middle of the Nevada desert called Pahrump. It's somewhere between Las Vegas and Death Valley. Why did we go to Pahrump? For Frontsite of course! And why did we want to go there? A couple of reasons... 1-to prepare for the almost inevitable zombie apocolypse (or whatever the future holds), 2-to learn how to safely holster and present a weapon from concealment, 3- to learn how to quickly and effectively clear a malfunctioning weapon, 4-to improve speed and accuracy with said weapon, 5- and (my personal favorite) to rescue hostages from bad guys. =) Because we were actively engaged in drills on the shooting range and class room lectures from sunrise til after sunset each day during this 4 day course, I don't have many pictures from frontsite to share -but here are the few I managed to capture!
Our trip started out with a stop off in St. George, where we spent the night at Beth and Keith's condo (thank you James'!!) then went for breakfast at the Bear Claw and a nature walk with Josh and Meisha in the morning (thanks Josh and Meisha!!). I don't know why I didn't bring my camera for that. Anyway, Patsy (Chris' Mom) started asking Josh and Meisha a lot of questions about their shoes... lol... it was only a few hours later that the above photo was taken and Patsy had a new pair of shoes! Man, I really need a pair of those I guess... he he. It was a short, but fun visit.
There's me...trying to look cool. He he. Oh dear. In the back you can see our range and the other half of the class working with targets. Those targets could face you like they are now, or they could flip away from you. Some drills involved shooting the target accurately in the chest or head when it was facing you for less than a couple seconds before it flipped away. Those were the head shots I always had trouble with, but other than that I turned out to be a pretty accurate shot. =)
Ready for action! Chris was one of the envied students in the class! This was taken on one of our first days there. Little did Chris know at that time that later that week he would go on to get a perfect score in the shooting section of our exam and graduate at the top of his class as a distinguished graduate! Definitely NOT an easy thing to do!! I'm so proud of him. =)
Here's a shot I took from the car window on our way to Front Site one morning. It was a very empty, but also very pretty (early morning!) daily drive.
This photo was taken the night of our very last day at frontsite. It was a long and hard week, but probably the most fun I've ever had doing something so hard! We got to know our instructors very well & they were very helpful & (lucky for me) very patient. From left to right: Scott (instructor/seemed fairly new), Glock Spyke (aka Chris), Pound Cake (aka Me -yes, we had nick names), Wayne (instructor and husband to--->), Patty (range master). Behind us you can see the hostage scenarios we were working on earlier (rescue the white silhouette from the grey ones).
The day after we finished up at front site was kind of a free range day. We planned to spend the night in Las Vegas, but weren't in a hurry to get there, so David and Patsy decided to take a little tour of the area around Pahrump. We heard Death Valley was nearby, so took a drive to see if we could find it.
While driving through the desert, looking for Death Valley, we came across a couple of creepy crawlies! The first was a decent sized snake -probably a rattler, but hard to tell because he was dead and the end of his tail was missing (don't worry, no pictures of that). After that, David somehow spotted this little (or not so little) guy scurrying across the road infront of us. We couldn't pass up the chance to see a real live tarantula in the wild! So we pulled over to get a closer look! Hard to tell his size in these photos, but I'd say about the size of a softball?
He got close to me faster than what was comfortable, so I had to pick up my cell phone off the road and back up just a little. Remember, I have no zoom lense on my cell phone, so it was kind of risky business trying to get a good shot! But totally worth it...since no one was hurt (tarantula included).
Isn't that the coolest and scariest looking creature you've ever seen?!
We may have never found Death Valley, but we had fun looking at the scenery during our search!
This is a view of the mountains just west of Las Vegas. I've never seen them before, because we've never gone further, but if you get a chance it really is a beautiful area! We even saw some mountain goats on the cliffs by the road! (thanks to Patsy's sharp eyes)
We finished our trip off with one night in Las Vegas. We stayed at the Fitz on Freemont Street -Chris and I have grown fond of old town Las Vegas, so we suggested it. It was the shortest trip to Vegas I've ever had, but it was a nice relaxed ending to an otherwise busy hard working week. Thank you Chris, David and Patsy for making it all possible! It was a trip I'll always remember and hope to take again some day! =)
Last week Chris and I had the unique opportunity to go with his mom (Patsy) and step dad (David) to a little place in the middle of the Nevada desert called Pahrump. It's somewhere between Las Vegas and Death Valley. Why did we go to Pahrump? For Frontsite of course! And why did we want to go there? A couple of reasons... 1-to prepare for the almost inevitable zombie apocolypse (or whatever the future holds), 2-to learn how to safely holster and present a weapon from concealment, 3- to learn how to quickly and effectively clear a malfunctioning weapon, 4-to improve speed and accuracy with said weapon, 5- and (my personal favorite) to rescue hostages from bad guys. =) Because we were actively engaged in drills on the shooting range and class room lectures from sunrise til after sunset each day during this 4 day course, I don't have many pictures from frontsite to share -but here are the few I managed to capture!
Our trip started out with a stop off in St. George, where we spent the night at Beth and Keith's condo (thank you James'!!) then went for breakfast at the Bear Claw and a nature walk with Josh and Meisha in the morning (thanks Josh and Meisha!!). I don't know why I didn't bring my camera for that. Anyway, Patsy (Chris' Mom) started asking Josh and Meisha a lot of questions about their shoes... lol... it was only a few hours later that the above photo was taken and Patsy had a new pair of shoes! Man, I really need a pair of those I guess... he he. It was a short, but fun visit.
There's me...trying to look cool. He he. Oh dear. In the back you can see our range and the other half of the class working with targets. Those targets could face you like they are now, or they could flip away from you. Some drills involved shooting the target accurately in the chest or head when it was facing you for less than a couple seconds before it flipped away. Those were the head shots I always had trouble with, but other than that I turned out to be a pretty accurate shot. =)
Ready for action! Chris was one of the envied students in the class! This was taken on one of our first days there. Little did Chris know at that time that later that week he would go on to get a perfect score in the shooting section of our exam and graduate at the top of his class as a distinguished graduate! Definitely NOT an easy thing to do!! I'm so proud of him. =) 
Here's a shot I took from the car window on our way to Front Site one morning. It was a very empty, but also very pretty (early morning!) daily drive.
This photo was taken the night of our very last day at frontsite. It was a long and hard week, but probably the most fun I've ever had doing something so hard! We got to know our instructors very well & they were very helpful & (lucky for me) very patient. From left to right: Scott (instructor/seemed fairly new), Glock Spyke (aka Chris), Pound Cake (aka Me -yes, we had nick names), Wayne (instructor and husband to--->), Patty (range master). Behind us you can see the hostage scenarios we were working on earlier (rescue the white silhouette from the grey ones).
The day after we finished up at front site was kind of a free range day. We planned to spend the night in Las Vegas, but weren't in a hurry to get there, so David and Patsy decided to take a little tour of the area around Pahrump. We heard Death Valley was nearby, so took a drive to see if we could find it.
While driving through the desert, looking for Death Valley, we came across a couple of creepy crawlies! The first was a decent sized snake -probably a rattler, but hard to tell because he was dead and the end of his tail was missing (don't worry, no pictures of that). After that, David somehow spotted this little (or not so little) guy scurrying across the road infront of us. We couldn't pass up the chance to see a real live tarantula in the wild! So we pulled over to get a closer look! Hard to tell his size in these photos, but I'd say about the size of a softball?
He got close to me faster than what was comfortable, so I had to pick up my cell phone off the road and back up just a little. Remember, I have no zoom lense on my cell phone, so it was kind of risky business trying to get a good shot! But totally worth it...since no one was hurt (tarantula included).
Isn't that the coolest and scariest looking creature you've ever seen?!
We may have never found Death Valley, but we had fun looking at the scenery during our search!
This is a view of the mountains just west of Las Vegas. I've never seen them before, because we've never gone further, but if you get a chance it really is a beautiful area! We even saw some mountain goats on the cliffs by the road! (thanks to Patsy's sharp eyes)
We finished our trip off with one night in Las Vegas. We stayed at the Fitz on Freemont Street -Chris and I have grown fond of old town Las Vegas, so we suggested it. It was the shortest trip to Vegas I've ever had, but it was a nice relaxed ending to an otherwise busy hard working week. Thank you Chris, David and Patsy for making it all possible! It was a trip I'll always remember and hope to take again some day! =) 