Advenure: May

I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to make my trip for May because I was supposed to go to AZ, but then Andrea got married which I definitely didn't want to miss, and I had work...so I didn't go. But then the next weekend was a 3 day weekend, and I didn't have any plans... so at about 9pm on Friday night I decided I wanted to go to AZ and visit some of my cousins. And I conned a friend into taking the trip too, so I didn't have to drive alone through the worst stretch of highway in the middle of the night. It turns out I wouldn't really have been alone because JR and Summer were heading out too, and they were only about an hour ahead of us...but still, being the only one in the car is all that really matters. I mean, there is absolutely nothing to look at to keep yourself from going crazy.
Anyway, we finally found my cousin's place (seriously, in the middle of no where.) at like 4am.
Now, is it just me, or does AZ have a ton of speeding camera's on the highway/freeways? They seemed to be everywhere. I don't think I like it, because even if you are going with the flow of traffic, you could get a ticket, without even realizing it. I can appreciate that they want to do something to control traffic, but I'm a huge fan of the old fashioned getting pulled over. I mean, it sucks to get pulled over, but at least then you know you did something wrong at the time you did it....As I learned in school, the closer the punishment (ticket) is to the undesired action (speeding), the more effective it is. Getting a letter in the mail up to a month later (I hear it can take that long with our red light camera's. lame.) doesn't really create a mental correlation to the action. It just seems like a lazy way to give tickets. ...Ok, sorry. I guess I'll stop now. Back to the trip!
So, we got there at around 4am, and the next morning I was awakened at 7am by one of my cousins to go shooting...ya, I appreciated the gesture, but we decided sleep was more important. Especially when we heard that everyone wanted to go shooting again on Monday morning. When we got up I spent the day hanging out with my family. :-) Several of us decided to make a trip to the "local" Cabela's (it was the longest trip ever. I don't know why, but I seriously felt like I was in the car for 4 hours. I wasn't, but I felt like I was). On the way home, we had to make a quick stop at Costco,
On Sunday they all had church at 8am...So I decided to hit up the singles at 2. Haha. I slept in and then watched TV and then hung with my family.
Monday morning we got up and drove about 20 minutes to the open state land (I told you we were in the middle of no where) we went past the dairy

and the hay stacks

around the corn fields

to a dirt road

where shooting is allowed, and we set up some targets in the side of a cliff to shoot at with .22's

and a hand gun.

My cousin saved my life.

Then my other cousins threw some clay pigeons which we shot at over the desert brush. I hit about half of mine-not too bad.

When did my family become such gun nuts?
After that we all went to lunch at Logan's Roadhouse (my uncle's favorite place),

and then started our trip home. It was a long drive, but much easier during the day. I was a passenger for most of that trip--I was going stir crazy. I'm sure I irritated the driver to no end with my useless questions and fidgeting, but other than that it was a really good trip. So good, in fact, that I already want to go back. I love my family.