Thursday, July 12, 2012

Lauren In Kazakhstan

Lauren McGough is in Kazakhstan now, studying, handling birds, shooting a VEPR (thanks Darrell) at marmots and eating them, running hounds bred by Kostya (who bred our Taika) and of course drinking vodka (it's mandatory). She is in the Alatau in the southwest, where the mountains end and run down to the Caspian Basin; fascinating country where I have not yet been, hundreds of kilometers from civilzed Almaty. Pix now, (click to make bigger); stories soon I hope, though you can imagine your own...

Update: Lauren reassures us older worrywarts: "My God, Steve - there was so much alcohol involved in the marmot hunt! Even after my reluctant several-shots, I was very cognizant of proper gun safety! Those mountains are about 500km from Almaty. I took a bus - left about 6pm and arrived around 3am. We piled in an old landcruiser and arrived at the lodge around sunrise. Plastic two liter bottles of beer were immediately procured to wake us up. Lunchtime saw the vodka. And then dinner...gah!

"Although I will say, I seem to have a pretty good tolerance for vodka (nothing else really) these days, after all these years of practice!"

5 comments:

Reid Farmer said...

As I said before, I'd feel better if that fellow wasn't pointing his rifle at Lauren

Steve Bodio said...

Lauren reassures us older worrywarts: (may put it in an update later):

"My God, Steve - there was so much alcohol involved in the marmot hunt! Even after my reluctant several-shots, I was very cognizant of proper gun safety! Those mountains are about 500km from Almaty. I took a bus - left about 6pm and arrived around 3am. We piled in an old landcruiser and arrived at the lodge around sunrise. Plastic two liter bottles of beer were immediately procured to wake us up. Lunchtime saw the vodka. And then dinner...gah!

"Although I will say, I seem to have a pretty good tolerance for vodka (nothing else really) these days, after all these years of practice!'

Steve Bodio said...

Lauren reassures us older worrywarts: (may put it in an update later):

"My God, Steve - there was so much alcohol involved in the marmot hunt! Even after my reluctant several-shots, I was very cognizant of proper gun safety! Those mountains are about 500km from Almaty. I took a bus - left about 6pm and arrived around 3am. We piled in an old landcruiser and arrived at the lodge around sunrise. Plastic two liter bottles of beer were immediately procured to wake us up. Lunchtime saw the vodka. And then dinner...gah!

"Although I will say, I seem to have a pretty good tolerance for vodka (nothing else really) these days, after all these years of practice!'

Darrell said...

That's a VEPR, not a Dragunov.

Steve Bodio said...

Darrell-- you are right and I will change.