In 2009, the annual NRA convention was held in Phoenix, so my brother Joe, Tommy and myself were lucky enough to drive only 2 hours to stay with my cousins Jimmy and Becka and attend. This year, it was held all the way across the country in the beautiful, lush little town of Charlotte, NC…and once again we were lucky enough to go!
We arrived on Thursday night and immediately got lost, but somewhere around 1 in the morning finally found the hotel and tried to get a good night sleep – which by the way, didn’t happen. The next morning we headed out to the Convention Center in downtown Charlotte and drove around for probably a good half hour looking for parking. What a mess! Finally after going going in a huge circle we made our way back and found an obscure parking lot right next to a bank that was a few blocks away. That Friday, we did nothing but drool over the acres of guns that decorated the hundreds of booths inside the center. It was amazing.
The highlight of that day, however, was not handling/fondling/drooling over all of these beautiful weapons, it was meeting one of the greatest warriors of my lifetime – Navy SEAL and hero, Marcus Luttrell. If you aren’t familiar with Marcus, he penned the book “Lone Survivor”- a first person account of the SEAL mission he was part of called Operation Redwing. While executing the mission, Marcus and his 3 teammates were discovered by taliban forces and a huge firefight ensued. His 3 teammates were killed and Marcus, who was seriously injured but able to escape capture while under the protection of a local Afghan tribe, was eventually rescued by American Special Forces 6 days later. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. Marcus was nice enough to take his picture with both Joe and I and then he signed my copy of his book. It was truly a memorable experience and it was so inspirational to meet him.
On Saturday we drove our rented Toyota Yaris out to the Horne Creek Historical Farm about 2 hours away from Charlotte. It was really interesting. The state is restoring this old farm that was owned by a gentleman named James Hausier back in the early 1900’s. Eventually they want to turn it into a “living history” farm where workers will actually dress up like they did back then and do the same kind of work to give tourists a peek into what people did there on a daily basis. I’m curious if they will hire a pregnant lady to be the wife as the real wife was pregnant most of the time raising 12 children!! Yowza! We toured the entire grounds and had a lot of fun.
On Saturday night we went to the “Celebration of American Values” event and saw several people speak, one of whom was Ollie North. We had a great time, except that poor Joe got a ripping headache and we had to bail before we got to hear Charlie Daniels sing! Oh well…NEXT YEAR!
On Sunday we drove our trusty Yaris up to Asheville, NC to visit the famous Biltmore Estate. Biltmore is the largest swath of privately owned land in the United States…and once you see it, you’d believe it! We spent 4 hours touring the house, the gardens, the bass pond, the trails and the little town of Deer Antler about a mile away. It was breathtaking. The mansion is huge and the architecture is just amazing. My mom and sister could spend one day in the gardens alone! After visiting the estate, we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway which is the number one rated drive in all of America…lots of #1’s for us! We traveled on it for about 2 hours before getting caught in a wicked rainstorm and then making our way back to the hotel.
On Monday morning we returned our faithful little Yaris, got on a plane and flew back home to Tucson. It was a great, fun-filled, eventful trip. We were all happy to get back home though – me especially since I sure did miss my little monster while I was gone! Next year’s convention is going to be held in Pittsburgh, PA. Hopefully we’ll be able to make it out again and have another great adventure!
