A Few Days in the North Woods Part Deaux

Just so you don't think I spent all of my time up north in/on the water.

In addition to working on my next book while reclining lakeside, I put in about five hours at the range.

Unlike the indoor ranges in the Chicago area, these are outside and, most of the time, we're alone. Occasionally, hunters arrive to keep up their skills in the off-season, but the pistol range is never crowded.

Here's a question to test your handgunning knowledge. The first person to get the right answer wins one of the very popular Every Secret Crime t-shirts.

What about this picture tells you I'm posed for the camera instead of ready to take a shot?

A clue...what's missing? Hint...it has nothing to do with my finger being outside the trigger guard.

A Few Days in the North Woods

I've just returned from a place where I relax more easily than anywhere else on the planet.

I've been going to the North Woods of Wisconsin, up around the Minocqua/Woodruff area, since I was about six years old. Usually I head out in the late summer, which I plan to do again this year, but a couple of weeks ago a friend bought a boat (a sixteen foot Donzi, the little brother to the cigarette boats made popular on Miami Vice) and I felt it was my responsibility to be there to help him put it through its paces. So I slipped north for a couple of days this week or, what my dad liked to call, "an extra added dividend."

It looks like any other boat, doesn't it? Having never previously blown across the water at seventy miles per hour, however, I have three initial observations:

(a) At that speed, your eyes spin in their sockets like the symbols in the windows on a slot machine;

(b) Your lips become silly putty;

(c) The idea of having a "cocktail cruise"is laughable. Imagine trying to lift a drink to your lips but, instead, throwing it over your shoulder. At that speed, tortilla chips become lethal pellets.

Nevertheless, my time spent on the lake and among friends, listening to the loons, feeling the breezes through the pines, looking up at the crisp blue sky, was a marvelous getaway. I can't wait to return (as part of my book tour) in August.

I also couldn't resist posing with my very own copy of Every Secret Crime.