Range Date

My weekly range practice session was especially enjoyable this week. Colleen met me at my office and we headed over to the range together. We've not been able to have a range date for many months so I was looking forward to it.

As luck would have it, the range was a little busier than usual when we arrived, but it soon cleared out. It also seemed much more cold than usual. But, the shooting fun still happened! 

Due to range's opaque walls between shooting positions, we were shooting at the same time, rather than together. I peaked around the partition a few times for brief chats whole reloading magazines.

I spent most of my time slow shooting at 7 and 10 yards. It was one of the few range trips I've made recently when I had no specific plans in mind. It really was just about enjoying a lunch-time date with my wife. We'll have to make it a more frequent occurrence. 

Date Day Part 2 - Strangeways and Legend Breweries

After we finished up a fun-filled hour at the range, Colleen and I headed over to our next planned stop, Strangeways Brewing. We don't get down to Richmond often, and this place has been on my "need to do" list for sometime. Strangeways has 36 beers on tap, so deciding where to start was an issue. The friendly bartender suggested we start with the "Nucleus Flight" consisting of six of the brewery's core beers.

The beers on the flight are Albino Monkey White Ale, Woodbooger Belgian Style Brown Ale, GWAR Blood Red Ale, Phantasmic Belgian IPA, Hop Howler, and Überlin Berliner Weisse. We enjoyed the entire flight. Interestingly, Colleen and I were in agreement in picking Albino Monkey, Woodbooger, and Phantasmic as our favorites, but it was quite difficult to actually rank the six beers in order of preference.

The 3.5 ounce servings were enough for us to share but not so big that we couldn't try out more beers. So after the flight we grabbed a bag of tortilla chips and some salsa from the cooler, and tried a couple more 5.5 ounce tasters.

Colleen selected the Tirami'zu Brew Rum Barrel Aged Porter. This porter is brewed with coffee, cocoa nibs, vanilla beans and aged for 3 months in rum barrels. How could one go wrong with that? The beer did justice to its namesake with flavors of rum, chocolate and coffee. The mouthfeel was thick and creamy. My next selection was Legalize It Come Togther Hoppy Wheat Ale. The juicy citrus hops were joined by a nice wheat flavor that for a unique flavor profile.

The beers at Strangeways are as unique as their names. As we prepared to leave for our next stop, I still was curious about a few other beers on the list. One that had been tempting me the whole time was Virginia Stingo Red Wine Barrel-Aged English Strong Ale. At 10% ABV, I couldn't add it to my tasting list, but the bartender offered me a small taste. The Old Ale was aged for nine months in oak barrels that previously held red wine. And what a fantastic flavor that created! Boozy, with lots of dark fruit with caramel sweetness. In retrospect, I should have brought a bottle home.

After Strangeways, our original plans were to grab a quick bite to eat and head home. However, we decided to get food, and more beer, at another area mainstay, Legend Brewing Company.

We opted for a couple of starter plates for an early dinner; the Munich platter with Bratwurst, Kielbasa or and Andouille, (we upgraded to all three) a soft pretzel, sauerkraut, havarti cheese and spicy mustard, and the Smoked Salmon platter with honey smoked salmon, avocado, roasted red pepper, Fuji apple, dill cream cheese and grilled pita. The two plates contained more than enough tasty food for us to share.

As for the beer, I had a Golden IPA and Colleen enjoyed the seasonal Winter White. Both beers were fine accompaniments to the food, over which we lingered for quite a while. We also enjoyed a sample of the just released Ütebier. This struck me as a cross between an American Pale Ale and a very crisp Pilsener. It was an interesting flavor, and one I might seek out in a bottle locally.

Believe it or not, after all the food and beer enjoyed in the long day, we debated a bit about the next stop in our adventure. We'd already made it a longer day than planned, but as noted, we don't make it down to Richmond all that often and debated extending the road trip. In the end, we opted to start the long drive home, vowing we'd be back soon.

Date Day Part 1 - Blue Ridge Arsenal

I took on Monday off so Colleen and I could have "date day" doing fun stuff. We started our date by enjoying some shooting at Blue Ridge Arsenal - Winding Brook. Blue Ridge Arsenal is a new range in Ashland. It's less than an hour from our home and an easy drive down I-95. We'd never been and were looking forward to checking it out.

Upon arrival it took just a few minutes to do the one-time review of the range rules at an electronic kiosk. After that we paid our fee at the counter and got to our lanes with no delay. The Range Officer gave us a quick tutorial on operating the target carriers and a few other directions. He watched us for a few minutes and then left us alone to shoot. The Range Officers we saw were attentive but not hovering.

Shooting out to 25 yards is available at Blue Ridge. I started out shooting at 7 yards, then moved the target out to 10 yards. I also made use of the turning target feature to add some challenge. Shooting from low ready, I set the target to be exposed for 2.5 seconds and varied the shots from 1 - 3 each cycle. At first I was slow acquiring the sights when bringing the gun up. Eventually I was getting the third shot in consistently — and getting accurate hits. In the future, I'll vary the distance and timing to see what I can do. Drawing from the holster is permitted at Blue Ridge Arsenal after approval by one of the Chief Range Officers. There was no one on duty to do that while we were there but I'll definitely seek that approval on a future visit.

For my last few mags I set the target at 15 yards. Even though I can't see the target clearly at the distance, I was happy with the results. I jerked a couple shots, as often happens when I try to slow down too much and let my finger "think."

It was fun shooting with Colleen. We each had our own lane, but the glass dividers allowed us to see each other. We frequently stopped to compare targets and share what we had been doing. It's always a thrill for me to see how well she shoots too.

I recently learned that Blue Ridge Arsenal holds a monthly weeknight IDPA match. Now that I've visited the range, I'll try to fit that into my schedule on occasion too. And I'm pretty sure Colleen and I will be back again for more range time soon. Our local indoor range is much more conveniently located, but shooting at the turning targets in a climate controlled range was much more enjoyable than shooting static targets in the cold.

After shooting, we continued our date by visiting a couple local breweries. That will be a subject of another post.