blastin clays in the glades

It's nice to get away from the grind of day to day life in the north.  A place that is nice and warm in the months where New England is still struggling with the transition from winter to spring. We come down and visit my parents, and blow into town with two kids that, while they are great kids and usually very well behaved, are still kids, and can sometimes upset the apple cart. When we come down, it's a time for me to spend some time with my parents, and time for my wife to get a little quality time with the kids, since she works long hours at home, and doesn't always get to spend quality time with them. I go off with my father a lot of the vacation, we go shooting in the swamps of central Florida, which has become a high point of the vacation for me. Gulf Coast Clays is set a couple of miles off the Tamiami Trail, the road that connects Tampa and Miami, if that wasn't clear enough by the name, you pass an old abandoned and perhaps condemned hotel that eerily feels as though there is life bustling around in the decaying buildings, which is more than a little unnerving, but we press on past a water treatment facility and an "airport" of sorts, where the model airplane enthusiasts launch their pint sized planes. After we check in at the office, we head deeper into the swamp where the sporting clay course is laid out. The first four stations are located along a river, that I'm all but certain is brackish and probably loaded with gators just waiting for the opportunity to drag an unsuspecting shooter to the briny depths.