We arrived at the David Thompson Black Powder Shoot in Eureka, Montana to discover that the rest of our muzzleloading club was hiding out in their tents. The rain, which had started pouring down on the previous day, had proved to be a bit much for everyone.
Clouds blanket the prairie in Eureka
After getting some supplies together, we headed over to sign up for the muzzleloading rendezvous events – rifle, hawk and knife throwing, and pistol.
Eileen and Mallory ready to shoot
First up for the day was rifle. At the rendezvous, beads are used as a scoring system. For every target hit, you get a bead. In rifle, I got 20 beads out of a possible 24.
Even though the weather was rainy and cold, the rendezvous had a good number of participants.
Other participants at the rendezvous
Mallory was interviewed by a reporter (here taking photos in the red jacket) from the Tobacco Valley News.
A reporter taking shots for the newspaper
The place was crawling with movie people taking shots of us for the upcoming indie hit film, Love Like Gold…a love story gone bad.
Would we be extras in a movie?
After we competed in throwing (not pictured), there was a fire starting competition. Since we didn’t have our fire-starting kits, we got beads for surviving, while the others competed to start fires for us in 30 seconds.
That was an easy way to collect beads
After fire starting, Mallory and I had to rush over to pistol, as the range was nearly closed for the day. It seems that I lost all of my pistol shooting skills last year at Marion, which is another muzzleloading rendezvous we usually attend. I only hit 7 of the targets.
Shooting pistols at the Eureka Rendezvous
Thanks to the lovely windless weather, it was a lot easier to set up the tents this year than it was last year.
Setting up our tents
As the evening grew more and more beautiful, our parents went off to take pictures of the golden prairie. Mallory and I took a walk and threw hawks and knives.
Dad takes pictures of the sunset
The prairie begins to light up
Teepee against an evening sky
In the meantime, this herd of cattle came down from the hills right into the rendezvous camp where we were throwing.
These guys emerged from their tent and shooed them away back over the hill.
Our parents had completed their photog adventure, and stopped to take some photographs of their children throwing.
Back to camp where we then drank some hot chocolate with “mini marshmallows”. You know, as opposed to the big ones that usually come in hot chocolate packets. After walking around for a little longer, we sat around the virtual campfire until nightfall.
Mallory has some hot chocolate
The next morning at around 6:45, Mallory and I started our day by adventuring around the camp.
A new day is dawning
We took a walk down the ditch and discovered animal remains. Animal remains not pictured.
We also detected the strong odor of a decaying corpse, but couldn’t spot the source. (The aforementioned “remains” were just bones, so they weren’t the source of the stench).
What’s that smell?
Taking down the tent was a breeze.
At around 10:30, everyone gathered around for the blanket prizes. I got a new (larger) powder horn. Mallory went for a mystery bag, and struck gold with a Fortine mug.
Blanket Prizes
