Well, I headed back up to the slope on the 15th. Spent a bit of time putting together some goodies to take with. Ended up filling my suitcase fairly well, and the bows made it up there no problem.

When I got back up there, I spent my lunch hours shooting 100 arrows at a time. My shooting didn't really improve much until the last week, when I was finally able to isolate a few problems with my shooting sequence that were throwing arrows out of the grouping. I could get 6 of 10 to group where I aimed, the rest would fly up and left or wide right. Two of the three adjustments were to correct bad habits I had learned long ago. These were plucking the string, and opening my shoulders toward the target. The third problem is old age, or in this case my eyesight not being what it was 26 years ago. Now that I figured them out and have made the necessary adjustments, my groups are consistently holding at 6 to 8 inches at 20 yards, and I expect slow steady improvement on that over time.

Really, it is the first shot that counts, so teaching my brain to ascertain distance and do the computations for drop at range without the aid of sights is what the practice is about. You practice consistency, and the precision will come. But accuracy requires variation. So I shoot at 10 yards, 15 yards and 20 yards. Eventually I will have to take my bowhunters certification so I can go hunting with my bows and arrows. I plan on acquiring another recurve so I don't have to transport the one I have now back and forth. That way I can go out while I am in town and do some stump shooting etc. I gave the wife one of the two recurves I had with a lighter draw weight so she can have some fun too.

They fed us filet mignon and king crab(I am still allergic to the crab, darn it). I ate double portions of the filet and it was perfectly cooked. They had sweets galore, and yes, I have put on more weight this time. I got home this last Monday and have been trying to shed some of the weight. Hopefully I can get it off and when I get back up on slope at the end of the month I will be able to continue. We lost power during a particularly strong blow one night a couple weeks ago. In the 45 minutes it took to get power back, my hooch went from 68 degrees to 48 degrees. They don't insulate those buildings worth a hoot. We sat there listening to the turbine generator wind up and down about a dozen times. Had they not got power back within time, they would've moved us to another camp or some such. Our power loss was localized, and with all the redundancy they put up there, the chance of a catastrophic loss would be pretty remote. Even so, under the most dire conditions we could just light a gas line off and stand around the plume. A 40 foot tall wall of flame puts out a lot of btus. There's so much gas up there I am not worried about running out in my lifetime.

I went ice fishing today and caught a nice 22 inch Pike. After taking it home and dressing it out, I determined that Pike are a scrap fish and I will leave them for eagle bait when I catch them from now on. Pike don't belong here anyways, and I would much rather catch and eat trout.

Still not sure which bow I will buy next. But I will keep y'all posted.