It sounded like you had a fine time.

"... and we saw a few get cited for having a loaded rifle in their rig while driving, a big no-no."

My neighbor in Oregon was in a group that did that. Someone called for the driver to stop so he could shoot a deer/elk from the road (another no-no in most places), but by the time they got stopped and he got out, it was gone. The mighty hunter put the rifle back in the SUV for easy access, they hit a hole in the road, the rifle shifted, hit something and blew a woman's brains all over what was left of the windshield.

I'm hoping he lost his hunting privileges for life, but who knows? OTOH, maybe it was his wife he killed and he had some kind of remote trigger...

Sue