Goodbye Phoenix! And Good Night!

Today marked the end of my vacay in Phoenix. Goodbyes were said and hugs were exchanged. But before we get to that, I will tell you about my day yesterday (Monday the 13th). I woke up at 8:12, quickly got ready, and went with my Uncle Lance to take Hailey and Garrett to school. It was their first day of the new school year and I couldn't imagine how bummed out they were. They were big kids though and handled their teachers and new classmates like men. While the kids were at school, my uncle and I went to this landscaping/homebuilding warehouse type place. My uncle is building an outdoor kitchen in the backyard so he needed some materials. After he bought what he needed, we dropped it off at the house and we went shooting. Yup, with guns. Yes, real guns. And yes, I, Sean Song, pulled the trigger on a real gun. In order to legally shoot the guns we brought out in the open, we had to drive out into the desert in the middle of nowhere. But before we left, we needed things to shoot. So my uncle stopped to get gas and sent me into the QuickTrip to buy some targets... a 12 pack of soda cans. I picked Wild Cherry Pepsi because it was the cheapest they had and it's wildly delicious. So we laid out the cans and put some on raised platforms for the main attraction (more about that later). I'm lucky to have such a patient uncle, let me say that right now. With the first couple guns I shot, I couldn't hit a sumo wrestler if he stood ten feet away from me. I really sucked at aiming using the pistols.

It wasn't until I shot one of the bigger guns we brought did I have more control. It looked like a typical army man's gun. It rested against my shoulder so I felt like I had more control over it, which made aiming a lot easier. I hit a couple cans with that one. And seeing a pepsi can fizz up and explode after you shoot a bullet through it is a pretty satisfying feeling. How powerful the kick is on some of those guns is just crazy. I had no idea it was so hard to keep a steady hand. We saved the best for last. We busted out "the fifty." Another appropriate name for this last gun would be the "don't-mess-with-me-or-I-will-shoot-you-from-a-mile-away-gun."


It weighs about forty pounds, it's about four feet tall when it is stood up vertically, and it's in a number of action movies. That thing is insane! First of all, when it is fired, it is so incredibly loud that I had to brace myself whenever it was shot. Secondly, there's a huge burst of air that is backfired at you when you're shooting it. I'm talking like enough air to recreate the Marilyn Monroe photoshoot if you wore a white dress. And lastly, the bullets that thing shoots are huge and they travel amazingly fast. I shot a glass beer bottle with "the fifty" and it made me feel like a manly man. We were out there for about an hour and it was about 111 degrees out. But it was pretty fun shooting all those different kinds of guns. I mean I'm not a gun person, but it was one of those experiences that you can really appreciate and still have fun with. I wouldn't have done it if it was anyone else but my Uncle Lance, I'm glad we got to do things together this summer. Well after I "played terrorist" as my uncle jokingly said, we picked Hailey and Garrett up from school and then my Auntie Lara came to pick me up. But first, my Uncle Lance showed us his dinner for the night (huge King Crab legs!).


Then my Auntie Lara took me to Saporro where we would meet up with my Auntie Lana and eat. It's this really modern looking sushi place with pretty good sushi. My Auntie Lara told me it's like a night club at night and people try to pick up dates there. It was their happy hour so my aunties and I went happy and ordered 60 bucks worth of half-priced sushi rolls. The place was good, just like they told me.

[to be continued...]