Day 22: Safety off

There was mandatory polar bear safety and firearms training today followed by a trip to the shooting range. So to sum up the polar bear part: always look around and be aware of your surroundings so a bear doesn't sneak up on you or you sneak up on a bear. In the instance that you encounter a bear, remain calm, slowly back up while facing the bear and get everyone in the group together - just forget the gear, get into a vehicle and drive away or into a building. If the bear looks like it is going to charge (head down and swinging, shifting weight on its feet) fire a deterrent, starting with non-lethal. If somehow a mother and cub situation happens, be extremely careful because this is the worst case scenario and the mother will fight to the death. But you do the same thing - keep it cool, slowly back away, use the deterrents making sure the bears will move together to the same escape location where there is no one else they can run into.

Now to the fun stuff!

The Red Dragon! A 1981 standard of some maker - I'm not good
at remembering car brands. It was extremely sketchy though!

The firing range with targets set against a sand dune. We shot
from 20 paces.

This is a picture of the first time I ever shot a gun as the recoil
from the 22 gauge pump-action shotgun pushes me back into
Kat's hand and pushes the end of the barrel towards the sky.
I shot a gun!! Kat said I was so giddy and giggly after every shot.
It was awesome! Next I'll be like Cari Byron cutting trees with
a minigun Dillon M134D. So much fun! Now all I have to
do is learn how to sight down the barrel and not raise the gun
in anticipation. 

Last night was summer solstice! We had a Trash Dash to clean up the area of the construction site garbage that was blown into the rocks and trees. Then we were rewarded with a campfire with marshmallows, chips, and, the necessity of every casual science gathering, beer. A great tradition that left me and all my clothes smelling of smoke - which is great since I really don't have that many clothes up here so I have to smell like smoke until I can do laundry again!

To roast the jumbo marshmallows, a technique was involved.
Roast the outer layer over the coals, pull that off leaving a
gooey melty mellow which gets roasted again. The best roasters
managed 5 layers of roasties.

This is around midnight. What isn't seen in this picture is that
the sun was still setting behind me, and still setting when I
went to bed at 1 pm.