Why hello, New Favorite Picture of Myself! ^^

On Sunday Dan and I drove an hour to Barr Lake State Park, which hosts a regular introduction to archery. The intro is completely free and is led by rangers and volunteers on the park’s archery range and with their loaner compound bows and arrows. About a year ago I took a similar course at Cheyenne Mountain State Park, but besides that I haven’t held a bow in 15 years.

Oof, I have missed archery so much! As with basically any physical pursuit, I am terrible at archery… but I find a way to love it anyway.

The class was 2 hours long, and after the first hour the rangers led most of our group to the park’s 3-D archery range (i.e. realistic animal replicas that you can shoot at from a trail). I hung back, however, and had the chance to loose another ~40 arrows.

I was the only person in class who knew what fletching is, by the way. You can thank my years in the Society for Creative Anachronism for that specific set of geek knowledge; I bet I have spent more time constructing arrows than most people you know.

I didn’t get to see much of the wider park as I was tied up at the range, but Dan explored by mountain bike and sent a few shots.

Apparently half of the lake is for public use such as fishing and stand-up paddleboarding. The other half of the lake is cordoned off as a wildlife refuge.

Big thanks to Dan for cutting his ride short enough to snap a money shot of me with my loaner bow. (Don’t worry about where the arrows ended up. I sure didn’t.)