Saturday I took a few hours off and drove down to the new club range. We've only been out there a couple of years, but things are coming along nicely. The shotgun area has gotten more attention, but we're making progress on the "multipurpose range" as well, with a concrete firing position covered by a metal roof, which was quite welcome due to the rain that fell Saturday. I set up a squirrel at 35 meters, give or take, and set the chronograph up for another member who was shooting a Sumatra 2500 22 caliber air rifle. It was entertaining as he had never chronographed it and didn't understand some of the foibles of this model of rifle.

As we were messing around, me trying to keep track of him and the chronograph in between shots at the squirrel and him trying to load the rifle sans rotary magazine which he'd forgotten to bring, another member showed up with a Beretta semi-auto 22 rifle. It had a cobbled together sometime in the mid-20th century scope mount and a nasty old Bushnell 3-9X scope on it, and it was FAR from ready to sight in. I took the rifle, loosened the mounts and roughly eyeballed the crosshair orientation in comparison to the open sights and got pretty close. Then I ran a home printed target out to about 18 meters and hung it on the fence off to the side on a piece of cardboard (there's a good bullet stop that way too), took a shot and did some adjustments on the scope, took another, did a couple more adjustments, ran three shots, fine tuned the adjustments and we were bang on at 18 meters (give or take). We then took turns shooting up his box of ammo, and had a great time doing so.

It came time to leave as there were plenty of "to do" items waiting back in town so packed up the Grand Vitara and started to head out - at which point our friend had issues getting his Nissan 4WD pickup out. His city tread tires gummed up immediately and he simply couldn't get off the slight slope onto more level land to get a run at the driveway out. THIS is what I bought the Grand Vitara for! All I needed was a brewed beverage so I could say, "Hold my beer and watch this!" Dug out the tow rope, hooked it to his front end, he had a tow rope as well so I didn't have to get too close to his rig, we hooked them together and I got him up to where he could get a run at the exit (which is uphill, no gravel, mud all the way). Since his rig obviously has issues with the traction there, I went first, beats trying to drive on water slick grass to get around a stuck vehicle in front! Up we went to the graveled section of the drive and off to the side where he could get by. No problems for us, in spite of the fishtailing on certain spots. What a blast! Then he came on uphill and made it just fine after getting a good run at it.

A great day it was. Dropping the squirrel silhouette regularly when doing my part, teaching a guy about his air rifle, setting up a vintage rifle and scope then helping a friend get unstuck. Hadn't had that much fun in a month of Sundays!!

Nothing like towing someone but I've been on the other end also. Glad you like the Vitara.

Oh, I've been on the other end FAR too many times. In college I drove an old Ford Fairlane that was my grandpa's until grandma couldn't get in and out of it any more and it got parked on the canal bank a few years 'til he offered it to me for the princely sum of "If you can get it running, you can have it." USUALLY I could take it almost any place the other guys could take their pickups. Then there were the other times. More than once I had to spring for a complete wash for a friend's Jeep after he would pull me out. Believe me, it's more fun to be the tower than the towee! Somewhere I've got a picture (or used to have anyway) of the old Ford stuck in the ford of Turkey Creek. The driver didn't take into account the fact that the front tires on the Fairlane were too far behind the bumper to allow them to reach the slope before the bumper came to an abrupt halt upon contacting the aforementioned slope. Reversing on the loose gravel of the fording area caused the water to wash out under the rear tires leaving the differential high centered. Fortunately my friend with the Jeep was only a quarter mile or so away...