Day 8

The activities for today were shooting and grooming.

The reason we came to Midland was the Windwalker sporting clays course. The course is unique because of the shooting stands. The stands are built by various local contractors to show off their fabrication skills. Some are two stories high. One was a two room structure with a tile floor. The course is set up on land that is basically flat with no trees. There's a depression at one end that's filled with low bushes. There are two very nice towers with two machines in each tower. The target setters did a good job with what they had to work with. We had a good time.

I suspect that the place makes a good profit. The proprietor says that they have charity and corporate shoots almost every weekend. The shoots have up to 1100 people at them. They certainly have a lot of capital equipment. They have at least 40-50 good quality golf carts in addition to enough traps for two 11 station courses, two five stands, and a sub gauge course.

After the shooting it was time to give the dog a bath. She hadn't had one for two weeks and the smell was getting to be too much for a small trailer. We went to a self service dog wash. It had a couple of modules in it with a tub for the dog and a hose. You put in $10 for 10 minutes. The module has a dial that allows you to select hot water with soap, plain rinse water, rinse water with creme rinse, and blow dry. There's a timer to let you know how much time is left. It turns out that 10 minutes is plenty of time to wash the dog.

After we got her home we did Lucy's nails. This involves both of us. I hold the dog in my lap while Ellen grinds down the nails with a Dremel tool.

Tomorrow we go to Fredericksburg, about 300 miles. That means using the alarm clock again. This is the last stop before San Antonio and the Nationals.