From East to West and back again

Derek and I have just returned from the NM State Championship archery shoot in Farmington, NM.  It's a 400 mi trip there, clear across New Mexico from the far eastern corner where we live to the far western corner.  Fortunately, my mother lives in Santa Fe, a convenient half-way point.  On the way in, we stopped for lunch and finished the drive in the afternoon, but coming back we spent the night and came home Monday morning.

The way the State Championship works is like this: there are 6 shoots during the year- American, Vegas, Indoor, Field, Animal, and Hunter rounds.  You get 10 points for winning, 9 for second, and so on.  You can carry 40 points to the Grand Field.  At the GF, you shoot the Field, Animal, and Hunter rounds again.  The Field and Hunter are 28 targets x 4 arrows each for 112 arrows each round.  The Animal round can score on the 1st arrow and, done right, you'll shoot just 1 arrow for 28.   That's a total of at least 252 arrows, plus any practice shots.  All this is done in the field, up and down hills... quite a bit of walking... in the hot Farmington July sun.  It's a physically tiring round and it's important to pace yourself and stay hydrated.

Over  hill and over dale

Terrain

Derek has good form

Two sets of 20's

Derek won State Champion last year and, since it was the first year for his class, he set State records for every shoot.  He didn't start shooting until the outdoor rounds, but still won the overall.  This year, he shot the Vegas, Indoor, and all the field rounds and won them all.  Me, I won 4/5 with a 2nd place.  This meant that we both carried the full maximum of 40 points to the Grand Field.  In addition, Derek had a new bow this year- a Diamond Razor Edge- which he shot in all the field shoots.  Immediately after the last one, though, he got another new bow- a Hoyt Ignite- which was going to be a bow to grow into.  However, he shot it so well, that we made the last minute decision to use it for the Grand Field.  I was shooting a new-to-me Hoyt Alpha Elite that I used for the last Field round and I had an also new-to-me Hoyt Vector Turbo that I decided to use during the Animal round to give it some field experience.  The stage was set.

There were some exciting moments.  As I mentioned, we shoot 4 arrows at each target during 2 of the rounds.  All year long, I'd not needed any spare arrows and so I was carrying 5 arrows of the same fletch and 3 spares with slightly different fletch.  No surprise then that one of my shooting group nearly did a Robin Hood on my arrow, breaking it.   No problem... I pulled out my spare.  A few targets later, though, I shot a very tight group and one fletch sliced the fletch off another arrow.  No problem... I pulled out my different fletched spares.  On the first shot with it, the arrow cork-screwed and  hit about 6" low giving me a nasty 3 points instead of 5.  Bad shot, I figured.  On the next target, it did it again. Now we had a problem. Close examination showed that one of the fletches was misaligned- this happens rarely, but it does happen.  Fortunately, my other spares were good and I finished the round out in good shape.  And also fortunately, I'd brought my fletching gear, so I spend that evening stripping off my odd-fletch spares and re-fletching them all to match.

On the next-to-last target, Derek shot and his arrow corkscrewed.  On his next shot, the rest didn't drop like it was supposed to.  Turns out his cable clamp was loose.  There are rules for this, though, and I quickly fixed his mechanical problem, he retrieved his arrows, and shot again, scoring an 18/20, saving the day. Good times.

Derek ended up scoring considerably higher (30-50 points higher) this year than last, thus setting all new records.  I shot better than last year, too, although not so dramatically.  We both won State Champion in our respective classes, which was a fun thing to do.  I feel like I worked hard at my shooting this year and even though there wasn't much competition in my class, I was happy.

State Champ!

State Champ 2!

Coming home, we took a side trip thru the Jemez Mountains.  I'd worked here for 2 summers as a biologist 20 years ago and hadn't really been back, and I wanted to show Derek the country.  We were going to cut in from Cuba, NM but I thought that might be too much "mountain" for car-sick-prone Derek, so instead we hooked up from San Ysidiro to La Cueva, and then across to Los Alamos and down to Santa Fe.  It added about an hour and half to the trip, but it was worth it.

In the woods

At the Valles Caldera

The Jemez was, of course, gorgeous.  The caldera has got to be one of the prettiest places on earth.  There's a popular climbing spot just to the west of the caldera and we stopped to watch some climbers work.  Derek noted a couple of cabins across the road and said that would be a neat place to live; fish in the stream, climb on the rock, and elk hunt in your back yard.  Hard to argue with that.

Heading hom: 62 F, 31 mpg, 8 am

It was a long and tiring, but fruitful, trip.  We saw pretty much most of what New Mexico has to offer, from hot desert country to cool green meadows to wide-open plains.  We saw elk, deer, pronghorns, prairie falcons, violet-green swallows, towhees, kestrels, red-tailed hawks, and a goshawk.  It was dry, raining, windy, still, hot, and cool.  We ate green chile, pizza, and steak.

Georgia, unfortunately, had a rougher weekend, coming down with a fever and irritable bowels.  I think she needs a little more rest after her cancer treatment.  And I don't know about Derek, but after driving 800 miles, shooting 300 arrows, and hiking up and down hills in the hot sun, I'm needing a little rest, too!