OWAA CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Jim Miller's entirely traditional birchbark canoe.

Dave Graham's flintlock shoot.

Trying out Hobie's Pro Angler kayak. Mirage drive is the new mobility, and will at least quadruple my paddling range!

Shooting the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum revolver.

The talk on writing for trade magazines.

John Otterbacher's keynote address, about mortality, long-distance sailing and writing.

Meeting Field & Stream's Flyfishing Blog Writer and Editor-at-Large Kirk Deeter.

Meeting renowned editor and hunting/gun writer Wayne van Zwoll and watching him shoot rifles and photos.

Meeting National Shooting Sports Foundation's Range Report Editor Glenn Sapir.

Telling renowned outdoors writer Jim Zumbo I am a fan of his.

Meeting Georgia writer Hovey Smith, frequent contributor to Gun Digest and a wide-ranging thinker.

Meeting and hanging out with Bugle Magazine's Conservation Editor Paul Queneau, who's my age and laid back.

Meeting and hanging out with Nature Conservancy writer/blogger Matt Miller (I love the Nature Conservancy).

Meeting C.J. Buck, the fourth generation of Buck Knives.

Meeting one of Popular Science's Top 10 Inventors of 2008, Ben Hobbins, who invented an indestructible, environmentally friendly plastic lure.

Free shotgun shells, caps, boots, shirts, socks, first-aid kit, fishing lures, knife, and food. And the hospitality! Man!

Encouragement to write that damn difficult memoir about the Iraq combat deployment, from published authors (Hovey and Tom Huggler).

And finally, being the only guy who looked uncomfortable eating quiche at the breakfast sponsored by the Sierra Club.

Semper Fi, OWAA, you guys rock. Completely and totally rock. Lots more, maybe a part two?

Photos to follow.