Bethlehem, PA, into NC Redacted Adventure

PA

Monday, Feb 17:

The day after Winter Wildcat in WV, I was on my way to PA, to attend a training class for work.

I got beef wellington tacos on the way in.  I had beef wellington for the first time in Princeton.  It was amazing, and I hadn't had the opportunity to have it since, so I was excited about it.

I also grabbed a geocache.  I've gotten ones in PA before, so it wasn't a first for the state.

For dinner, I ended up at what turned out to be a cigar bar restaurant.  I'm not a fan of smoke, but it's not every day that you get to eat at an train depot built in 1873, so I stayed.   

Tuesday, Feb 18:

Got in HDT-KB 10.5.1 (core) in the hotel gym, subbing in DBs for KBs, in 42:01.  Afterwards, I did the 18A "Hollow" 16 min BW tabata.

I had dinner at another cool-looking building.  The Northeast has character!

Thursday, Feb 20:

HDT-KB 10.5.3 (arms) in 59:19 in the morning at the hotel gym, subbing in DBs for KBs.

We got a solid snow event during the day, which was nice.

Friday, Feb 21:

I got on my first ever standby flight.  I had never really known what it was or how it worked before.  I guess I never really had the opportunity to do it before, since I'd have check-in bags for longer trips where I might be at the airport really early.  It was exciting to see my name up there, though!

It was good to get back slightly earlier than originally planned, since I had a lot of packing to do for my NC adventure.

NC ADVENTURE

I drove out the morning of, running on not a lot of sleep, before an event where I wouldn't be getting much more sleep.

It kicked off with some car-based navigation and teamwork, before we could link up with our contacts at the safe house.  There were some funny speedbumps along the way, but we ended up where we needed to be.

We went on a nice little walk on a tour.

We learned some BJJ and had some quiet time.

We got in some firearms training with Alt C, the rifle qual, and some modification of a triple-bull like pistol qual.  PM borrowed my Estonian LMT since his gun had issues, so I used my shovelnose piston LMT for the first time.  It's heavy, and the reticle takes some getting used to at 1x, but it seemed to shoot ok, even with that reticle!

This was a good weekend of fellowship and sharing.  We had more quiet time, and then our nighttime adventure began.

Leading up to this event, we had been ruminating about and trying to figure out the packing list.  What ended up happening, though, was that we were dropped in the middle of nowhere with just a handful of supplies.  Fortunately, we got trash bags to hold and waterproof our supplies, since we went through some swampy stuff!

We made it through, even though it was chilly and even though we were wet (some of us more than others).  We got a few precious hours of sleep before we got to celebrate with a huge breakfast.

We shot some more, doing Bill Drill and El Pres timed, and doing the SB OH duel (2-handed).  

After that, time to clean up and go home.  It was a very special experience.