Roadtrip To Cabelas

Since turkey season is fast approaching and there are no really good hunting stores around here, my sister and I took a road trip to the Cabelas in Hamburg, PA yesterday.

Roadtrips with Sarah are always interesting. One weekend last year we decided to go to an outdoor show at Pequest Fish Hatchery, which is only about fifteen minutes away. Needless to say we ended up driving around lost for forty minutes until Sarah realized she’d read the directions wrong and told me to turn left instead of right.

I’ve driven up to Cabelas a few times when I lived at my parents house, but this was the first time I would be driving up from my own place, which is about forty minutes closer to Cabelas than my parents is.

I had a list of things I needed to buy (snake chaps and a camo jacket for turkey season) and a list of things I wanted to buy (stainless steel deer skull for the grill of my truck, and a Max-1 bikini). Sarah had her heart set on a new hoodie, and we were both planning on walking around the store for a while to scope out hot guys. (Hey, its rough being two single country girls who live in Jersey!)

Sarah met me at my house at nine in the morning, we left my house by ten, went to the bank to cash Sarah’s latest paycheck, and we were on our way. Fifteen minutes into our trip, with Sarah reading my mapquest directions (A mistake I don’t think I’ll make again, no offense Sarah LOL) we made a wrong turn. (“No, I think we were supposed to take that road up the hill!”)

I can’t really say we got LOST on the way, we knew where we were…we just weren’t sure which road led to Cabelas. 

A trip that should have taken an hour and a half at most, took us two hours…but we spent most of it laughing at ourselves, and blaring Blake Shelton and Jason Aldean, which made it enjoyable. Really, it was pretty good since we didn’t get pulled over or anything. It was also a learning experience…in NJ there are gas attendants at every gas station to pump your gas for you…halfway to Cabelas we pulled over to get gas and realized that we were going to have to pump it ourselves. Not surprisingly it was so simple a caveman could do it, and so could we.

We got to Cabelas at noon, and the first place we went was to the bikinis, then the Bargain Cave for snake chaps. Then, we decided we should eat at Cabelas (dumb idea) so stood in line for ten minutes for the buffet until Sarah panicked that she might not like any of the food. We opted for McDonalds.

After twenty minutes at the McDonalds down the road from the Cabelas (And all the Amish people were properly appalled at our laughing and all the guys were properly amused by the fact that Sarah and I were holding hands) we headed back to Cabelas for our second round of shopping.

We actually found a parking spot close to the store this time, and even got whistled at by a group of guys walking past my truck.

Back inside the store we decided to walk through all the taxidermy so I could start hyperventilating thinking about deer season, then we went to get my steel deer skull and find Sarah a hoodie. We finally found a pink hoodie that fit her, since most of them were too big, but then came across a Realtree Girl shirt in Max-1 and spent twenty minutes deciding which one to buy (she got the shirt).

By the time we left the store with our stuff, plus two chapsticks and a mini pocket-knife key chain thingy, it was 2:30. And, we had no directions to get home. My logic was to reverse the directions that we had to get to Cabelas, and we would be fine.

This time, it actually worked. One hour, twenty minutes, and no wrong turns later, we were back at my house.

I have to say that was one fun road trip!

Excited For Turkey Season!

It’s been a few weeks since I wrote my last blog, but I feel like there hasn’t been much going on since then…

I took a trip down to Harrisburg, PA for the Eastern Outdoor Show with one of my friends, and met up with some great people and made some awesome plans for the upcoming year. We were at the show for two days and spent the night in a motel in Harrisburg where we ordered pizza and I paid for it in quarters hoping to annoy the pizza delivery boy, though he didn’t really seem to mind.

Last week I got called back to work at the farm so I’m finally making some money again… and I’m counting down the days to turkey season!

Turkey season in NJ starts about mid-April but this year it’s going to start a little earlier for me. This year I’m going for my grand slam: Eastern, Osceola, Merriams, and Rio turkeys. The beginning of April I leave for Florida with a good friend of mine, then from there we’re going to Kansas and Nebraska. (I’ve never hunted any of these states before!) Hopefully by the end of the trip (16 days) we’ll have 8 birds down!

I’m not sure how many women have completed their grand slam so I tried doing some research on it. (Most of the articles that came up for “turkey grand slam” had to do with Tennis players in Turkey!) I did manage to find several articles about a 7-year-old girl and her 11-year-old sister (Adriana and Alli Armstrong, http://www.alliarmstrong.com) who both completed their grand slams in 2009... I thought that was pretty amazing! Then I scrolled through the NWTF online record book and found quite a few women’s names listed their, even a few from New Jersey.

I still haven’t decided whether I want to use a bow or gun…I’ve started shooting my bow again to get some practice in just in case that’s what I decide to use.

I can’t wait…deer season hasn’t even been over for a month and already I feel like its been forever since I was in the woods. In one month I’ll be back out there…I have a feeling this year is going to be amazing!

What I Want For Valentine's Day

I know what I want for Valentine’s Day this year…I don’t want flowers or candy or moonlight serenades or anything like that. 

Nope… This year I decided that I would really like if I got a hot guy for Valentine’s Day. Preferably one that looks like The Talldarkandhandsome in the Carhart jacket in the back of the Cabela’s Magazine.  (Don’t worry I’ve included a picture.)

Also, while I’m asking for things, he might as well be able to kill a whitetail at 50 yards with his bow, drive a really hot truck, own a log cabin in the woods, be good at telling dirty jokes, have lots of land with monster trophy whitetails, and have a really cute friendly dog.

I even put together a picture of what it will all look like so that if you see it, you can send it all my way. It doesn’t even have to be gift-wrapped.

And it’s not like what I’m asking for isn’t possible. It’s realistic….right??

Right??

RIGHT???

 Pretty nice, huh??????

Season's Over

I feel like I’ve been neglecting my blog lately…but really, I don’t feel like there’s much to write about these past few weeks. Our deer season is now officially over. But on the bright side, there are only 220 days left until the NJ season opens again. (I counted.)

I supposed I could try coyote hunting. Coyote season runs until the end of February, and I’ve never tried it. My older brother Joe goes coyote hunting all the time with his buddies, though they hardly ever get anything. It seems fun. Challenging, but fun.

Just the other day Joe dropped two of his buddies off in Stokes State Forest to track a coyote they had shot the previous night. He dropped them off early in the morning and left for work. Needless to say there was a bad blizzard that day, and Joe’s buddies got lost in the middle of it, without any food, water, warm clothes, supplies of any kind, no gps, and bad cell service.  Joe managed to call them that afternoon and find out that they were lost.

So then my dad, Joe, one of my other brothers and a state trooper all went out looking for them. Luckily they found them pretty easily, safe and sound and embarrassed. It was just like in the movies, only funnier.

Anyways, I’m pretty excited for the Harrisburg Show next week! I’m staying for two days this year since I have so many people I need to meet up with and talk with about the upcoming hunting season. Over the next few weeks I should really find out what I’m going to be doing and where I will be hunting this year. I’m going to start this hunting season off with high hopes!