Trip west to Whistler via Arkansas...
- mike bennett
- Nov 6
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 6
I'll write a bit on my adventures as I drove west, not chronologically-- the above is Crater Lake in Oregon. I was fortunate enough to see this with my 'X' fren @RevHaz_matt...Matt took me through winding roads and we shared many a tale plus some pizza. I've said it many times, but it is worth repeating: see your twitter buds when you can!
Much of the trip was dominated with pew-pew events, this one being in an undisclosed location in Arkansas. Yes, Arkansas. It was mid-October and the weather was glorious-- almost every day clear and low/mid 80s. Here is a link of me and a dude doing a shoot house: it's a bit long (and I hope you have access!). It's too big for me to download onto this site, but here goes: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOrt-PvJxc5upTWKT2-eKBmXOJkOl36lJ2pdwXBsMWsTI61fnLOjZEuI75GiA3wIw/photo/AF1QipNsc_Bqi8otjymxIyS-ViwiraHPT97OQbz5GM2a?key=QVp3OXlDeVlVdWJCcDNicWNRRVdZcW1jWFNyOXhB
My instructor was an Australian (former) SAS man (also named 'Matt'). Me and Mattie got along quite well, and he taught me the proper use for the word 'cunt'. It's very much like the word 'Hooah' in Ranger speak-- used for and could mean anything, good or bad. Example-- you can refer to a person as a 'cunt', and that could mean 'he's a good cunt' or otherwise. Quite useful.
Anyways, here's me leaning to my weak side of a barrier with an AK-47. So, I started blasting...
Here's one of me in rain gear (only day it rained...Saturday...and it poured like 10 MFs). This one an M4 type platform, little SBR Mattie called 'the noisy cricket'. You had to be there to hear his accent, I guess. Mattie was a hoot.
In the background you can see the bus we used for live-fire hostage rescue scenarios. Very linear, very close quarters-- lots of room for catastrophic failures (misplaced/errant shots if you trip) which could be very bad.
Once again, I'll have to say I'm a pretty big fan of the old red dot sight (RDS). Very fast. Still have to do the old Kentucky windage thing for shots that deviate from where it was zeroed, but it seems it sure makes it easy. Still-- learn with iron sights, I say.
Forearm of the guy behind me belongs to a dude I'll refer to as a cunt. Young (30ish) ex-West Pointer who made many references to his 10 year Army career (he counted his 4 years at USMA) where 'he saw a lot of good men die' if they didn't do room clearing thus...Problem is, he was an Armor officer, graduated in 2015, and never deployed to IQ or AFG during the GWOT.
What a cunt. I told Mattie I would never train with him again. If he was on the list when I rolled through, take me off. PNGed. Mattie said they'd never let him train there again, not to worry.
This little House of Horrors. Doesn't look like much-- it is a training facility for local Fire Fighters (Mattie moonlit there as an EMT-- gunfighters don't make a lot of $$$). Within was a configurable set of walls/barriers, so every time you hit it, the layout was different and you had to flow through on the fly. Lot of fun-- we did Simunitions and there were role players and everything. Mattie didn't allow any filming inside, to protect both the integrity of the scenarios and the role players. I got shot right in the thigh and was very glad it didn't hit my ball sack, even tho I was wearing a cup.
I started this trip in Bar Harbor, Maine-- at the vaunted Acadia National Park-- a national park as worthy as Yellowstone. My bro and I rode the Carriage Trails on our gravel bikes, and we had lobstah with all the other tourists...pretty damn good sunset, here.
I'll pimp my book of poems, 'Sooth Your Wrath'...
Along the barren coast of Maine,
Mount Desert Isle is borne.
The combers cast a sad refrain
Of ships by tempests torn.
Where granite meets a frigid Sea,
To staunch Her soulful boil,
The raindrop’s merge is hailed with glee--
As breakers crash and roil.
With rocky banks along the shore,
Waves surge to Thunder Hole.
The barricade holds fast—endures,
From thrusts beneath the shoals.
The raindrop churns amidst the swells,
To seek another path.
It longs for Rest on dewy dells--
Evades the current’s wrath.
There's more-- buy it!
Above is a link to a video of my next adventure-- off-road driving. I was hoping to embed it right onto this page...but, noooooo. Cunts.
Anyways, click on the link to see me chase my boy Mike Green in his Land Rover. (I just checked the vid...it's only 3 seconds, but you get the idea)... This training was done in Fernley, Nevada...and I saw the most exquisite sunsets I've ever seen enroute to Reno. Mike Green was a bit of a legend in the SF community years ago when he set up a special 'Nevada Trophy' off-road competition in which a team of two would have to cross-country for 10s of miles and navigate to a given point where they were given a task (set up a two-rope bridge (Postman's Bridge); apply a TQ to a wound near a broken femur; conduct room clearing/HR in an abandoned mine site). You know, stuff you might see in the upcoming #TheDruze:Rendition.
Of course-- this is me and my man @Brushbeater, muse for those seeking esoteric optics and thermal imaging devices. We met (again) along the way in his shop, and I'll add also my man (men) @VincentParry and @TheAuthor_JAD (@stevestratton blew me off in CO)...I will add the pic of VP and JAD when I find it!!! Actually, I'll poast this on Twitter and see if those two knuckleheads read it and comment to me the pic of them in the Airstream in May is missing!!! Good fun!!!
Meantime, I'll add my boy Blue and Brink! More twitter hi-jinks...
Ahhhh...fixed it! My boy DMed me the pic in the Warlock's Lair...May 2025, somewhere in Virginia...We drank a little bourbon (actually, not a little) and my boy VP even woke up in the morning to see me off as I drove off into the early morning mists-- 'twas a gathering of good friends...
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