Colorado Springs

So this past weekend was AMAZING!!! My dad won a trip to Colorado Springs to shoot with the USA Olympic shooting team and lucky for me he decided to bring Hubby and I along!!! We headed up Friday night where they greeted us with a BBQ and social time. It was pretty awkward at first, I mean here we are mere mortals walking into a group of athletes at the very top of their game. But they made us so welcome and were just as friendly as we could possibly hope. We mostly talked to the shotgun shooters, a young group ranging from 17 to 22. There are some older shooters (its a sport that you can continue for years, in fact their current coach is around my parent's age and competed in the last games) but most of them were in Belgrade I think.
On Saturday we got up and headed to the Olympic Center for a tour which was super cool! We even got to see the Olympic flame!! We peeked in on the swimmers, the women basketball players and the weight room. One of the shooters we met calls it the fishbowl affect! I imagine it must be strange to have tourists captivated by your very move! After our tour we went to the shooting center where we learned about air rifle and air pistol. The rifle was fun and I actually wasn't too bad, in fact I even scored higher than Hubby and Mom, only topped by Dad. Duh! Offf course, I was resting the rifle on a sandbag and not standing like you're supposed to but, hey, I'll take what I can get! Pistol was a whoooole different story! I tried to point the thing and looking down the end you'd think I was standing in an earthquake! I scored about 20 points lower than anybody! It was still interesting though. I'm so impressed by the technical skill and muscle control of these guys! Last thing in the morning was playing with the semi-automatic 22s. They don't compete with these, instead just bringing them out for folks like us to get a kick out of!
Lunch was at the Olympic cafeteria! It was actually good, although the two guys we were with complained that all the health food gets old! Luckily for them the Papa Johns around the corner delivers to the dorms at the center! :)
After lunch we headed to the shotgun range, and here was where it got super fun!! This was my first time to even hold a shotgun and there we were shooting skeet with the US team!! Craziness! I have to say that shotgun people are a whole different breed, a lot more outgoing and friendly! We had a TON of fun! After a couple of hours of miss, miss, miss, hit (WOOHOO) miss, I was exhausted. I don't know how they do that for hours everyday!
We went to dinner with 5 of the shooters, Buddy the marketing/fundraising guy and Cory the, I think, team manager. It was fun just to sit around and shoot the you know what with these guys. They are an interesting bunch, very smart and quick witted!
Sunday morning was back out to the shotgun range, this time to shoot trap. I actually was doing pretty good, thanks to my awesome coaches, until my shoulder started going ooowww!! The guns don't kick as much as I was afraid they would but after so many shots it starts to wear on you!
Then it was off to the airport and home to bed. What a fabulous weekend!