Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival
Entrance to the Great Outdoors
This past August the Annual Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival went on the road and came to Oshkosh. The festival has been held annually in Tennessee for the past few years and since Wisconsin has the largest population of DU members, they figured they might as well see how it would go over up here. Even though there wasn't all that much publicity for the event 80,000+ people did go thru the gates over the course of the weekend. If you like doing anything outdoors this festival had it all, from shooting to Mtn biking, camping to off roading and archery to rock climbing. I went w/ my friends Eric and his brother Kurt and high on my list to do was shoot some hand guns. The deal they had going was for $5 you could get a ticket which allowed you to shoot either handguns or shotguns and all the major manufacturers were there so you could pick and choose whatever you wanted. I ended up shooting some handguns from GLOCK and HK 9mm and .40 from both manufacturers. Now I know what you're thinkning 'how could they let people shoot handguns in a crowd that big?' Well the had a converted semi trailer which had a backstop and sound proofing materials in there so it was all legit. After we shot the guns Kurt and Eric wanted to try out the rock climbing wall they had set up, I had done that before and opted to pass on it. Afterwards we milled around in some of the pavilions checking out all the different vendors and what-not. Time was beginning to fly by and we still wanted to get over to the trucks and 4 wheelers so we headed over that way. Now comes the cool part, both Honda and Suzuki had off-road courses set up that you could test drive their 4-wheelers (as long as you wore the proper protection) so we gave those a try and it was awesome! Right next to this was the off-road course for trucks & SUVs which you could drive as well. The were Jeep Wranglers, Cherokees and Grand Cherokees, Chevy Blazers, Dodge Durangos, Ford F150s, Suzuki Grand Vitaras and the creme de la creme an M class Mercedes! Take a guess which one was most popular? By the time we got up there it was pretty slow so I got in a Cherokee sport right away and I was off! For something they built a few days before hand it was a pretty good course, lots of inclines and declines mixed in w/ berms and 'rutted' sections. As soon as I got out of the Jeep I jumped back in the Suzuki and to my surprise it wasn't that bad. Well by this time they were pretty much closing up shop so we had to get out of there w/ out test driving the Mercedes. I guess you can't do it all in ne day, but maybe next year!
Entrance to the Great Outdoors
This past August the Annual Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival went on the road and came to Oshkosh. The festival has been held annually in Tennessee for the past few years and since Wisconsin has the largest population of DU members, they figured they might as well see how it would go over up here. Even though there wasn't all that much publicity for the event 80,000+ people did go thru the gates over the course of the weekend. If you like doing anything outdoors this festival had it all, from shooting to Mtn biking, camping to off roading and archery to rock climbing. I went w/ my friends Eric and his brother Kurt and high on my list to do was shoot some hand guns. The deal they had going was for $5 you could get a ticket which allowed you to shoot either handguns or shotguns and all the major manufacturers were there so you could pick and choose whatever you wanted. I ended up shooting some handguns from GLOCK and HK 9mm and .40 from both manufacturers. Now I know what you're thinkning 'how could they let people shoot handguns in a crowd that big?' Well the had a converted semi trailer which had a backstop and sound proofing materials in there so it was all legit. After we shot the guns Kurt and Eric wanted to try out the rock climbing wall they had set up, I had done that before and opted to pass on it. Afterwards we milled around in some of the pavilions checking out all the different vendors and what-not. Time was beginning to fly by and we still wanted to get over to the trucks and 4 wheelers so we headed over that way. Now comes the cool part, both Honda and Suzuki had off-road courses set up that you could test drive their 4-wheelers (as long as you wore the proper protection) so we gave those a try and it was awesome! Right next to this was the off-road course for trucks & SUVs which you could drive as well. The were Jeep Wranglers, Cherokees and Grand Cherokees, Chevy Blazers, Dodge Durangos, Ford F150s, Suzuki Grand Vitaras and the creme de la creme an M class Mercedes! Take a guess which one was most popular? By the time we got up there it was pretty slow so I got in a Cherokee sport right away and I was off! For something they built a few days before hand it was a pretty good course, lots of inclines and declines mixed in w/ berms and 'rutted' sections. As soon as I got out of the Jeep I jumped back in the Suzuki and to my surprise it wasn't that bad. Well by this time they were pretty much closing up shop so we had to get out of there w/ out test driving the Mercedes. I guess you can't do it all in ne day, but maybe next year!
