Black Ice, Deer Hunting and Pvt. Malone

Thought I might not make it to deer camp this year...
I took today off as my aunt passed away and I was planning on driving down to Howard Lake for the funeral. Weather wasn't so hot but figured it was worth the drive. I got on 94, the road looked good so I put a cd in the Trailblazer and headed on down the freeway. I had just passed the Evansville exit, doing 60 mph when I hit the black ice. I hit the center ditch, doing 60, sideways. I went down through the ditch, up the other side and then back down and up the other side. I was turning the wheel every which way trying to keep from flipping the truck. I ended up down in the middle. I gunned the truck, threw it in all wheel drive, cattails and mud flying everywhere and started to climb up to the freeway. That's when I saw the rental truck bearing down on me. Fortunately, he had seen my predicament and some how managed to slow down enough to allow me to whip up back onto the freeway. I somehow managed to slide over to the right lane so he could get by me. He did a good job just to miss me. Thanks guy...
I saw people sliding around in the west bound lane as well so decided to get off the freeway at the next exit (6 miles down the road). I put the Trailblazer in 4 wheel drive and crawled home on the back roads. Took an hour to go 20 miles.
It's true what they say. Everthing was in slow motion. I remember thinking that Trailblazers are top heavy and that I had to get the truck out of two wheel drive to get out of that water.
Looking back, that truck should have flipped over at least three different times. Why it didn't I'll never know. Maybe it wasn't my time. Maybe I had a co-pilot.....
Guess I'll be deer hunting in a couple weeks....

Kurt and Dewey go a huntin' (Round Two)

When I discovered the Minnesota deer hunting didn't open up until the second Saturday in November, I decided to take another crack at that elusive quarry, the grouse. Since my normal spot hasn't been overly productive this fall, we decided to hunt north of Mora, in some spots I've hunted off and on over the last 30 years or so. We had stopped going up there after only flushing three birds two years ago.
Well, those three birds must have laid a ton of eggs as we flushed more birds than I had flushed up there in many years. Some flew out of pine trees, some flushed well ahead of us and, of course, some flew in a direction different than that in which we were shooting. We did, however, manage to bring home two.
T'was a great day, great weather, lots of birds to chase and a good time spent with an old friend. It's a shame we don't do that more often.......