Ghosts..

and guns.

I know, a non sequitur but that pretty much sums up our day.  Well, I forgot about the burgers.  I guess it should be guns, ghosts and burgers.

It's Spring break for the kids and for me.  A perfect week filled with sleeping in, no schedules and best of all no lunches to pack.

When asked to choose between Sea World and shooting, the kids chose shooting.  And so began our excursion to points north of beautiful Barstow.

First stop was our favorite burger place - Freddy's Steak Burgers - in Victorville.  I guess it says how much we love this place that one of the deciding factors of our trip was that we got to eat lunch here.  They have awesome burgers and frozen custard - delicious!

After we indulged ourselves we continued north, past Barstow.  We finally arrived at our destination - the boonies!  Alright, it isn't actually the boonies.  The boonies are driving east on I40 past Flagstaff... real boonies, like no Star Bucks or McDonald's or gas stations for hours.  Like you better be able to change a flat tire and kill zombies on your own because there ain't another person around for miles kind of boonies.

So this isn't full boonies, just partial boonies.  Anyway, once we arrived the kids jumped out of the car ready to "mine" while Nadim got organized for shooting.  For the past month or so my kids have been playing Minecraft, I personally don't see the attraction, the graphics are horrible, but the kids love it.  This trip segued nicely into that mindset.  For the kids though mining translates into digging big holes and collecting rocks.

Son 1 and Son 2 came prepared with shovels, picks and working gloves - let the fun begin!

We rotated the kids through shooting.  Daughter volunteered to shoot first, then Son 2 and finally Son 1.  The boys brought some paper targets with them of rancid looking, nasty boars.  They had a great time shooting at those.  We did have a few small technical difficulties, like forgetting the table and chairs.  Nadim realized we were table and chairless about 1.5 hours into our journey so it wasn't an option to go back and get them.  Leave it to my trusty husband to "improvise".  We made do with a bucket that was supposed to be for collecting rocks and the target stand.

Daughter

Son 2

Son 1

After the kids were done it was my turn - don't mess with Momma :)  I shot up a gallon milk jug with the .22 rifle and then tried out my old Beretta .22.  Nadim went last, he is an amazing shot with his trusty .45

Of course the .45 is one of the guns I learned to shoot on and I have a classic story of 2 cans of Coke and that gun .. suffice it to say that one can of Coke was for me to drink and they other was to hold on the goose egg on my fore head.  You know that poster "Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten"?  Well I should make a poster that says "Everything I need to know I learned on the shooting range with my Dad"

Anyhoo, once we finished shooting we headed off to the ghost portion of our day.  I'll give you a couple of hints - the ghosts were just a couple of miles down the road and there were lots of European tourists there.

Stay tuned for part 2