While we were firing off rounds, a couple of people went across the other side of the wash to shoot. Everyone smiles and waves at each other, but Tyrel says to be wary of strangers anyhow. He also says to know where your rounds are going, which is good advice. Since we took his BMW, we couldn't get over the wash and only had so much to shoot at. I wanted to walk further down the wash, but we would have had to carry everything with us, because this close to the border, there could be illegals behind any bush. I had seen a lot of border patrol when entering Sierra Vista, so I guess it's true. Tyrel told me the bordr patrol usually won't stop you even if it looks like there's one illegal in the car, because there is always someone else transporting half a dozen of them and those are the ones that need to be stopped moreso.
After shooting into the opposite face of the dried-out wash for a while, it became a little boring. So I scouted around and found some empty soda bottles, a shot up can of latex and a discarded jacket, which Ty said must've belonged to a border crosser. Being from New York and so liberal as he calls it, I had to question a lot of the things he said, but he had some good rebuttals. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't making blanket statements about people crossing the border to el Norte. He had some interesting stories about them and about the crazy Arizona Minutemen, "ordinary" citizens who take it upon themselves to patrol the border. I'm told you can't just shoot anyone coming across the border and that you must be in imminent danger in order to open fire.
There was also this crazy blimp thing a couple of thousand feet up in the air. Tyrel tells me there are about three of them along the border and they surveil drug trafficking out of Mexico. If I recall correctly, he said Arizona has one of the highest meth lab rates.
Here I am shooting (bel0w). I fired all ten bullets in the clip before I knew one had left the barrel.
I like this next gun. I was pretty accurate with it and it doesn't have much of a kick. Unfortunately, I still flinch when I shoot, so I'm sure it affects my accuracy.
Here I am (below again) with a shotgun. It had a really good kick until we started using the shells that only had a little powder in them. I found an older washing machine down in the ditch, so we fired upon that a bunch. With the kick of this gun, you've got to be really good with it or shoot something big enough you know you cannot miss. The shot does fire over a fairly large area.
Tyrel thinks he's so cool shooting one-handed (below).
You can see the smoke coming out of the barrel just after the shot was fired. I bet he got that latex can but good.
Take that ants! I didn't realize we were going to the desert and not to a range, so I wore my sandals and got bit by an ant. It stung for about two hours. Nasty little bastard.
Here is the old copper mine in Bisbee. It is very, very deep. Tyrel tells me Bisbee is the old mining town that retired Harvard professors come to live. The mine was operated by Phelps-Dodge and they mined copper from it for about sixty years. You can kind of see at the bottom, the water that's all coppery. I bet it's mighty tasty.
We then ate at this really great restaurant and went to some of the shops where I got postcards and gifts for people. There were lots of antique, jewelery, and used book stores. It's a really quaint place to visit for a day or two.
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