13 July - Wednesday - Calgary (Shopping and Shooting)

G'day All,

Today was all about a girls day out and  boys day out. Penny and Samantha spent the day shopping and doing some catch up mother / daughter while Gary and Oliver went to the range for some action.

The Girls Day Out.
We dropped the girls off at where Samantha works and they headed off on a shopping spree and lunch at the nearby mall. Not quite sure what they got up to but there seemed to be a hot feeling coming from the credit card in my pocket as the day progressed :-) A good day for a long awaited girlie catch up with a nice lunch.

The Boys Day Out.

After we dropped the girls off Oliver and I headed to the Milo about an hour and a half south-east from Samantha and Oliver's place and home of the Calgary District Target Shooters Association range. A nice range with 6 multi-purpose bays consisting of 5 with a depth of 25 meters and 1 with a depth of 50 meters all varying widths. Rifles ranges at Milo are 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 meters and we only had one other party at the range for the first hour or so and then the entire range to ourselves. Weapons used for the day included;

Left to right - 12 Gauge Shotgun, 5.56 Rifle and 9mm Luger Pistol

308 Calibre precision rifle

Lots of fun had with targets on the short range and then some times runs with shotgun, rifle and pistol at various targets.

Me with pistol

Me with shotgun

Me with the rifle

Oliver with the pistol, complete with smoke and ejected shell

Oliver and the shotgun

Oliver with the rifle and a chance capture of the muzzle flash.

After the short range we hit the long range targets 300m, 400m and 500m with the precision rifle with both of us consistently hitting the 8" targets after sighting and allowing for wind. I was particularly chuffed with my grouping on the 500m range with 4 within a 10cm circle and one almost dead centre.

All said and done we had about 4 and a half hours on the range and went through 700 rounds of ammo. It's a good thing Oliver makes his own or it would have been a very expensive day ;-)

On the trip home we stopped at a few locations so I could grab a couple of landscape photos.

Silos surrounded by canola

Oil pumping jacks in the canola fields

Wide screen scene

After such a big day, on the way home we indulged in a burger and the thickest milkshake we've ever had from Peter's, a Calgary favourite.

Thickest milkshakes ever . . .

That's all for today but we are heading North tomorrow for a visit to the Yamnuska Wolf Sanctuary and a hike at Grassi Lakes about 45km south of Banff.

Cheers
Gary and Penny