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I drove up Friday morning and spent abut four hours in the main tent. I didn't shoot - mostly because I couldn't figure out what shoots were going on....hammer gun, 16 ga. etc. I renewed an acquaintance with Kirby Hoyt whom I met at the Southern a couple of years ago and with Bob Nay of Macnab. I talked for awhile with Toby Barclay. . .all know of and use the Reilly date chart now. Met "tut" at the Fox owners table, who turned out to know many of my former work associates. Somehow missed 8bore, Nitrah and eeb. I enjoyed listening to the two youngish people manning the gunsmith guild table - it was heartening to know that there is an association dedicated to getting young artisans interested in the sport, hobby and career.

There was a decent turnout of dealers in all sorts of shooting paraphernalia and guns - mostly high-end (how may H&H's can you look at over a set period of time?). Some gun owners associations - Fox, Dickinson, Westley Richards, LC Smith. The only gun I was remotely interested in was the Dickson previously discussed which of course wasn't for sale. I didn't think the shoot was super well attended but could be wrong - maybe 300-500 cars, trucks and jeeps in the parking fields with easily room for another 1000.

It was a pleasant morning and afternoon- the heat didn't really build until after 2:00 PM. The drive up route 15 past Gettysburg at 8:00 AM was charming with the leaves on the mountain sides just starting to change with a hint of color in places (and somehow passing Gettysburg the ghostly roar of cannon and rattle of small arms fire that for a Southerner will always be there). (My French father-in-law upon standing on Cemetery hill said, "Dieu voulait que ce soit un champ de bataille.") Stopped for coffee at a small cafe north of Gettysburg and watched the German origin farmers - working people - come in for omelets and brew. There were early morning mists that added to the picturesque.

I took back routes back into Maryland that afternoon. Rural Pennsylvania is so different from the South architecturally - the huge barns with multiple windows and cupolas + lightning rods and silos, the towns with close packed wooden Germanesque houses and front porches - the feeling of the small settlements and farm landscape is foreign - as different as Maryland is from northern Virginia - but strangely so connected in many cultural ways. It's odd that being so close. . I haven't driven anywhere near that route in 40 years since I crashed a Honda Goldwing in 1982, sliding on fall leaves up in the Poconos on my Honeymoon.