Privacy of the Mind

I’ve written about this before, a tradition a friend and I have on the occasions his wife heads out of town several times a year. During these brief periods of time when he has the opportunity to be master of his own schedule for a while, we celebrate a sacred time we like to call… Man Day.

We began our day of testosterone drenched activities at the crack of dawn, as manly men do. Our first goal was a trek to a new Mecca of Manliness in the northwest territories, the recently opened Cabela’s in Lacey, Washington.

This place is an amazing, two-story shrine for all things outdoors related. The huge center atrium features an artificial mountain covered with mounted examples of various animals and inside the mountain is a walk-through aquarium filled with wild fish. Upstairs is a display of African animals, though I couldn’t really tell if they were *real* animals or models in some cases. Did I mention the full-size Piper Cub airplane hanging from the ceiling?

Apart from checking out the animals, there are plenty of activities besides shopping to distract you. They have a cafeteria upstairs and an in-store archery range. There’s also an electronic shooting range that’s fun for kids and adults. You can waste away several hours without buying a thing really. Which is good because while you will find items on sale at good prices, their regular prices aren’t necessarily the lowest around. I saw several items that I knew could be obtained much cheaper elsewhere. Still, it’s an interesting destination if you’re into outdoors sports.

After picking up a few small items at Cabela’s (my big find was grape licorice twists… though I was informed it wasn’t very manly) it was back north to the Renton Fish and Game Club for a couple of hours on the pistol range. Today we were shooting replica black powder revolvers, my first time. I found it to be a very “zen” experience which shooting pistols normally isn’t for me. I can get into the zone while shooting rifles but pistols I can generally take or leave. I practice with them because I own several and want to be proficient in their use, but it’s not really a passion like my rifles.

Black power pistols proved to be different because of the process involved. Loading was an involved chain of steps… measuring and pouring the powder, pressing a lead ball into the cylinder, putting a percussion cap in place and then carefully cocking the pistol and taking aim, firing, then waiting for the smoke to clear so you could see the target.

After range time was over, we headed back to my place to drop off the gear and then off to Jimmy Mac’s for a lovely steak dinner and then back home to watch “Live Free or Die Hard“… great film to cap off a day of manly activities.

After all that, I’m kinda burnt out… being macho all day is hard work! Now that my friend has headed home, I think I’ll unwind with a cup of tea and a good book, but don’t tell anyone!