Shooting guns.

Last night Caroline and I went to Larry's Pistols and Pawn (yes, that's its real name) to do a shooting lesson. We needed to get hunting licenses (Walmart sells everything) so now we are truly dangerous.

We were a bit nervous but the instructors were really sweet. They started with a video explaining how to handle guns etc which completely freaked me out. Mostly because there was so much information to take in. But then they gave us guns and dummy rounds to practice how to load and unload. Getting the bullets into the magazine is hard. (Near the end he lent me a tool to make it easy. Why I couldn't have that to start with I don't know.)

My Glock!

We rented guns from the shop (the other couple in the class with us had their own) and were both shooting 9mm Glocks, which are semi-automatics.

After the practice, we went to the shooting range to do it for real. You start in a sitting position shooting one round at a time. And I was so glad I was sitting. For the first time, Bill, our instructor, asked us to do it one at a time and Caroline went first. It was much louder than I expected! I jumped out of my seat! And the kick back was impressive. My gun was a Glock 26 which means it is a bit smaller than the 19 Caroline was using. (They only told me at the end that the smaller one has more of a kickback or I would have switched!)

After sitting we moved to standing. My knees were shacking, I won't deny it. And the position they tell you to shoot from ... well it's not the elegant position you see in the movies.
And after a few single shots, they told us to just full the magazine and shoot as much as we liked. So we set to work trying to obliterate the target. :-)

We had brought 2 boxes of ammo each, though only used one. We were going to take photos with us and the guns but were too nervous and didn't want to seem like tourists!

But we did get keep our targets! :-)

With my target and certificate

Caroline, sharpshooter!

I was very impressed with our shooting. I expected to be awful! The first shot was good, in the black. After that I sorted of wondered for a bit. All the ones in the white are due to me wincing in anticipation of the gun going off! So the instructor basically made me play Russian Roulette (with the target of course) so I didn't know when it was actually going to fire and stopped wincing.

The instructor was really sweet. I was a little tense. (Every time I went to shoot someone else did and I jumped. Plus I was being hit over the head with casings - I found a few down my top later.) So he gave me a little shoulder massage to calm me down. But after a while it got better, I got used to the bangs, and I chilled out a little.

Still I managed to get the bulls eye quite a few times. Caroline even managed to shoot hers out (she got around the rim and the bullseye and a red rim was left on the board)!

We were also rather hyper when we got back. It is quite an adrenaline rush.

"Are you talking to me?"

"I'm not sure!"

It was fun though I am not sure it will become my new hobby! I was expecting my arms to really hurt today, but I am pleasantly surprised.

We spent the rest of the evening trying to calm down with mugs of tea, popcorn and more Game of Thrones. :-)

Chattanooga and Ruby Falls.

On Sunday morning, I did not feel great. I am blaming the fact I only had a salad to eat so the wine really had an effect and not the fact I can't seem to drink much anymore! (Caroline felt fine.) But we were up and out reasonably early to drive the 2 hours to Ruby falls. I have been wanting to visit these falls for a while. The falls are 145 ft inside a cavern in Lookout mountain. The elevator at the start goes down 260 ft into the mountain and the doors are glass so you can see the rock. It was a little unnerving.

Cave Donkey?

Formations.

Cave bacon

The tour was interesting and the tour guide was really good. The only problem I had was the group was really big and they didn't give us enough time at the Falls. I took a few photos of Caroline in front of the falls. I was just handing over my camera and they turned the lights outs! So I didn't get any of me with the falls. :-( But I did get some nice ones just of the Falls.

Ruby falls

Caroline at Ruby falls

 You can also go up the mountain so we headed up and saw the views across Tennessee.

View from Lookout mountai 

Windswept on Lookout mountain

We also wanted to check out Chattanooga. It was a nice little place but not what either of us expected.  There was less of it than we thought there would be. We had a drink and walk over the bridge in search of a downtown-like area.

Paddling area near the aquarium

 We thought there would be more little shops etc. That said, it didn't stop us finding a nice little jewelry shop and spending more money. We are going to head back to Chattanooga next weekend so we have earmarked some places to go. We kind of staggered over a different bridge on the way back, as we were both flagging!

Caroline on our way back to the car.

Then we headed back to Huntsville, Alabama. Via Georgia and Tennessee a few times which confused us. But we made it and after a quick supermarket stop, headed to Caroline's to make thai curry and watch Game of Thrones and Frozen. We were exhausted! But it was a lovely weekend. And I am looking forward to the next week. Lots of fun and wine in Alabama! :-)

Knoxville

Friday afternoon (after a week of hell with Hubble proposals), I got the Megabus down to Knoxville, Tennessee, to meet Caroline for the weekend. The bus was late so when she picked me up from the bus stop, we headed straight into downtown for food. Once we found somewhere to park, we headed to Market Street, which is a pedestrian area with lots of bars and restaurants.  It was really nice and the weather was amazing! I forgot to take any photos though. :-( We were so hungry. We ended up putting our names on a waiting list for a nice vegetarian restaurant and going to get a glass of wine first. But the food was nice and we scoped out some places to try later.

On Saturday morning, we wanted to go to an old house with some tulip gardens. At first we went to the wrong house and quickly escaped, saying we would come back for the tour (but we never did). Once we finally found the Crescent Bend house (the right house), it was a bit confusing. It looked like they were setting up for a wedding so we were a bit worried about gate-crashing. And there were 3 girls dressed up wondering around. We thought they were for the wedding but apparently they also just wanted to see they gardens (making us feel very underdressed!). We ended up feeling like we were sneaking in but we found the gardens.

Top of the gardens

Tennessee river

Fountain

Looking down from the house

Unfortunately we missed the main tulip time as most had flowered and been deheaded. But it was still really pretty. We didn't get to go into the house (we couldn't figure out how to get in!) which was a shame.

Tulips 

More tulips

After Crescent Bend House, we headed to Knoxville zoo and had a great time wondering around. Plus the first ice-cream of the year! The weather was amazing and in the 80's. So nice. A lot of the animals were either sunbathing or chilling out in the shade. Caroline and I got a little burnt too.

Black bear 

Furry Armadillo! :-)

A baboon giving his opinion.

Sun bathing lion

Monkey and his friend

Playing 

Gorilla helpfully sleeping near the window

Posing Rhinos.

We must have been amazingly efficient as we were finished by about 2pm. On the way in, we had seen a sign for the botanical gardens. It was more of a field and we were just trying to find somewhere quiet in the shade to sit and chill out. But it seems to be very popular with photographers and we seemed to be getting in everyone shot so we decided to give up and headed back to the hotel for a rest.

We chilled out for a bit before popping out to find a liquor store as we both wanted to try proper moonshine. The store was amazing!

Moonshine!

We selected 3 little ones, 1 classic and 2 flavored (strawberry and apple pie). We have only tried the apple pie so far.

Classic, Strawberry and apple pie moonshine.

Caroline preparing

Ready

We both decided it would be better chilled with some ice! A lot of ice! I'll let you know what the others taste like.

A little too strong!

Not so good.

After the moonshine tasting and we were sure we weren't going to go blind, we got a taxi into town so we could both have a few drinks - nicer ones. (When we booked hotel, the site said it was downtown, but it lied! It was a 10-15 min drive from downtown! :-( )

Knoxville was pretty busy this weekend. They had a football game by the Tennesse Volenteers (the collage team) so there were lots of people dressed in orange. (It felt very similar to Blacksburg at times.)

We went to the Sunsphere (which was part of the 1982 World Fair) and were really happy we hadn't gone during the day. The observation deck was shut for renovations. But the lounge bar was open. Perfect!

Sunsphere.

enjoying the view, drinks, and company

Drinks in the sun.

After some wine and nibbles, we headed into downtown. They had closed off Gay Street for the Rossini festival. We have no idea what it was for but it was fun to wonder around. There were lots of street performers, food vendors, and craft stalls. So we had a great time checking out all the jewelry stalls.

View down Gay street of the festival

Tennessee Theatre.

We decided we wanted to sit down with a glass of wine for dinner so headed back to Market Street. Everywhere was packed so we put our name name for an outside table and went into the bar. We ended up getting bored waiting and eat inside instead, before heading to the Hilton to get a drink there (as we figured there would be taxi's there). We had one drink and still no taxis so we had to cheekily ask them to order us a taxi to go to another hotel. :-)

Last drink of the night at the Hilton.

RAD class

The past few weeks I have been taking a self defense class through the uni, called Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) and I convinced Cissi and Cait from work to come with me. It is for women only though there are some places which do a men's only class as well. It is a 3 part course. The first class is a classroom style class, where they take you through the basics of safety. What to and not to do. Most of it is just common sense but there were some useful tips like how best to hold your keys to use them as a weapon.
And we got little police badges. Which sounds silly but they are cool! :-)





The second week and third weeks are more practical. On the second week, we attack bags. They showed us the moves and we then practiced with the instructors holding punch bags. Me and Cisssi got the big male police officer. He was about twice Cissi's size but the look on his face when she hit the bag was priceless! He started bracing himself really well after that! I don't think I need to worry about her getting beaten up. Her beating other people up, now that is a different matter ... :-)

In the final week, we get to attack cops! Well, they attack us and we defend ourselves. They talked smack talk and got in our way, and then they attack, grabbing us, picking us up, throwing us onto the floor. We all wear pads, especially the police as we beat the hell out of them. It was pretty emotional and scary to be honest at the start. The head pads restrict your view and there were 2 of them against one of you. We each did 2 different scenarios and a couple of people went for a third.

Our police attackers

Cair getting ready

Cissi rearing to go!

Our police attackers looked exhausted and a little banged up at the end, bless them. They also recorded our "attacks" and we got to watch ourselves kicking butt at the end, which was a strange experience.
Once you have done the course once, you can go to any of the classes again. Whenever you want. For free. So Cissi and I are going back again next week to practice the moves again. And we meet some other very nice people there. The atmosphere was great with everyone supporting each other. (Though I don't think any guys would have liked being there - they would probably wince! A lot! We got vicious.) There are RAD courses for men only as well though.
If your uni or police department offers a RAD course, take it! It is really useful, and whether you need it or not (and hopefully not!), it worth it and fun. And a good work-out. 

April fools prank

I saw this walking from the 7/11. That took some serious dedication and some people with too much time on their hands!