Ingredients for a good ‘mancation’: The great outdoors, sports and machine guns

I recently took a “mancation” to shoot machine guns in the desert, watch Cactus League baseball, visit a copper mine and explore Phoenix.
For the uninitiated, a mancation is a man vacation. Just the guys. No day spas or shopping or things women might enjoy. Mancations are about manly stuff – thrill seeking, adolescent fun, maybe some geeky things.
The possibilities are endless.
They range from the mundane (golf vacations) to the extreme (running with the bulls in Pamplona).
The concept of mancations has been featured in such movies as “City Slickers” and “The Bucket List.”
I’ve taken a few mancations in my life. My college roommate Scott and I drove from Chicago to Key West, Fla., in December 1988 and rode the rapids on the Upper Gauley River in West Virginia in September 1998. I also explored China with my brother Bill in May 1999.
Obviously it’s been awhile since my last mancation.
But here’s my list of guidelines for mancations:

10 Mancation Rules

1. No women allowed. (Duh.)
2. No shopping excursions, spas, theaters, and other activities popular with ladies.
3. No getting dressed up. No fancy restaurants or events.
4. Shaving not necessary. Grow that beard if you want.
5. Red meat diet. (Steaks, burgers, etc.) No vegetarians.
6. Beer.
7. No talking about your feelings.
8. Limited contact back home. (i.e. Calls to wife or girlfriend.)
9. Activities must include one or more of the following: the great outdoors, sports, big machines, and other macho stuff.
10. Have fun.

Photo: Riding the rapids on the Upper Gauley River in West Virginia.

Exploring Phoenix: Arizona ‘mancation’ Part 4

While in Phoenix last weekend, we sampled some of the many things the region has to offer this time of year.

South Mountain Park

High on the list of things to do in Phoenix is a visit to South Mountain Park. At more than 16,000 acres, it’s the largest city park in the U.S. The desert preserve includes 51 miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding.
We took a hike to enjoy the fresh air. We saw some Indian petroglyphs, cactus-dwelling birds and spring desert flowers.
We also drove up the winding mountain road to Dobbins Lookout, elevation 2,330 feet, for some great views of Phoenix and the surrounding area.
On my last visit to the park several years ago I saw chuckwallas, the largest iguanid lizards native to the U.S., sunbathing on some rocks. Chuckwallas can reach up to 16 inches in length. Unfortunately I didn’t see any of the lizards on my brief visit to the park this time.

Restaurants
We sampled some great Mexican food at Los Olivos in Scottsdale. The historic restaurant was a favorite of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, according to an article on Associated Content.
We also had a terrific steak dinner at Monti’s La Casa Vieja Steakhouse in Tempe. It’s another restaurant that’s steeped in history.
For some kitschy fun, we ate at the original Bill Johnson’s Big Apple Restaurant, a cowboy-themed eatery established in 1956, in Phoenix. The waitresses wear gun belts with six shooters. It’s a hoot.

McCain-Palin rally

Speaking of hoots, when I heard that Sen. John McCain was reuniting with his running mate Sarah Palin from their failed 2008 presidential bid for a rally, I couldn’t resist attending.
McCain is in a tough reelection battle, facing a Republican primary challenge from radio talk show host and former U.S. Congressman J. D. Hayworth. He invited the former Alaska governor to speak at rallies in Tucson and Mesa last weekend.
We attended the Saturday rally in Mesa and watched Palin whip up the crowd with her fiery rhetoric and folksy charm. She was interrupted by two protesters who were promptly dragged out of the auditorium – one by his hair.
I’m not a fan of either political figure, but it was entertaining to be at the event, which was attended by 3,000 people.

Photos: South Mountain Park (top), and Sarah Palin and John McCain at the March 27 rally in Mesa, Ariz. (Photo from the McCain reelection campaign)

Baseball spring training: Arizona ‘mancation’

The Phoenix area has become a Mecca for baseball fans thanks to Cactus League spring training for Major League Baseball.
Fifteen teams play in Arizona’s Cactus League, the same number as play in Florida’s Grapefruit League.
Most Cactus League teams play in the Phoenix metro area. The Valley of the Sun is the winter home to 13 baseball teams. Two other teams are based in Tucson to the south.
The top draw is the Chicago Cubs, thanks to hometown fans wanting to escape the harsh winters in Chi-town. Plus, the Cubs, loveable losers that they are, have a large nationwide fan base.
This year’s Cactus League schedule runs from March 3 through April 3.
My brother Bill and I watched the Cubs play the San Diego Padres split squad on Saturday March 27. The game was played at HoHoKam Park in Mesa, Ariz., the Cubs’ home away from Wrigley Field.
It was an enjoyable game, despite a noisy group of drunken Padres fans and the fact that it ended in a 2-2 tie.
The official attendance was 13,462, a record for HoHoKam Park. But it may have been broken since. The three home games after ours were all reported sellouts, according to Bleed Cubbie Blue.
Cactus League baseball is obviously a boon to the local economy. But with rising ticket prices, outrageous rental car rates and pricey hotel rooms, you can’t help but feel fans are being taken advantage of.
Last year, Cactus League spring training attracted 1.57 million baseball fans and contributed an estimated $359 million to the Arizona economy.

Next: Exploring Phoenix

The Big Sandy Shoot: Arizona ‘mancation’

The Big Sandy Shoot is the largest machine gun shoot in the U.S.
Sponsored by MG Shooters, it’s held twice a year in the Arizona desert about three hours northwest of Phoenix.
I attended the first day of the March 26-28 shoot with my brother Bill. It’s held at the Big Sandy Range, located several miles outside of Wikieup, Ariz., a wayside of a couple shops, a BBQ restaurant and gas station oasis in the desert.
Competitive shooters and other gun enthusiasts camp out at the site for the weekend and reserve shooting spots on the hill overlooking the target range. But curious amateurs such as me can just show up and pay a $25 spectator fee and rent machine guns on site.
To get to the Big Sandy Range, you have to drive on dirt roads, up a steep rise or two and across a wash that is sometimes a creek. I’d recommend driving an SUV to the site just to be safe. We drove a Jeep Liberty through the creek and some thick patches of sand that cars might get stuck in. The range is located about four and a half miles off U.S. 93 northeast of Wikieup.
The folks from MG Shooters and event attendees were friendly and helpful. The people we met were quick to offer advice and answer questions we had. For instance, what’s a tracer? It’s a round of ammunition used for night shooting. The round contains phosphorous that creates a streak of light in the sky, allowing the shooter to see where their bullets go. We didn’t stay for the night shoot, but were told the tracer fire and flares create quite a light show.
We had a good time watching some of the expert marksmen show off their stuff, hitting metal targets like steel plates and oil drums in the distance. One group launched bowling balls from a cannon. Occasionally someone would fly a remote-controlled airplane across the range for the shooters to fire at. No one knocked it down while we were there.
My trigger finger was itching so I headed over to the MG Shooters gun rental booth.
I tried out the .50 caliber Browning machine gun ($4 per round) and the .30 caliber Browning (20 rounds for $25). It was a kick to shoot the guns, but my aim wasn’t so hot.
Then I tried my luck with the sub machine guns: the MPK Walther and the M16 (both $25 for a 20-round magazine). Of the two, I preferred the M16, with which I was surprisingly accurate. The weapon felt very comfortable in my hands and was a breeze to control.
MG Shooters had eight different sub machine guns to rent, including the AK 47 and Uzi.
I can now cross “shoot a machine gun” off my to-do list.
Overall, the Big Sandy Shoot was a blast. The next one is scheduled for October.

Next: Cactus League baseball

Arizona ‘mancation’: Part 1 – Desert drive and the Bagdad copper mine

I just got back from taking a “mancation” (man vacation) to Phoenix with my brother Bill. Phoenix had two main things that interested me: baseball spring training and relatively close proximity to the twice-a-year Big Sandy Shoot – the largest machine gun shoot in the U.S. Additional pluses for the Valley of the Sun included great weather (a nice break from the cold, rainy East Coast this time of year) and the wide open spaces of the American West. Desert drive The spring Big Sandy Shoot was held Friday March 26 through Sunday March 28 outside of Wikieup, Ariz., about a three-hour drive northwest of Phoenix. We drove up Friday morning in our rented Jeep Liberty SUV. The drive along U.S. 93 is beautiful. The terrain includes vast stretches of Sonoran desert with saguaro cactus in the lower elevations and Joshua trees in the higher regions. The spring desert was blooming with wild flowers and cactus flowers in yellow, purple, blue and red. Along the highway are magnificent buttes of giant boulders and majestic mountains. Once outside of the Phoenix metro area, we drove through the little towns of Wittmann and Morristown; Wickenberg, an Old West town known for its ranches; Nothing, aptly named since there’s nothing there but a roadside shack selling pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven; and ultimately Wikieup, which features a large modern Shell gas station, an Indian jewelry shop and the Eat at Joe’s BBQ. Before the Big Sandy Shoot, we took a detour off U.S. 93 to visit Bagdad, Ariz. Bagdad copper mine

Bagdad is one of two company towns in Arizona. It’s owned by the mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. The town was built to serve the Bagdad copper mine, a large open-pit mining operation that employs 1,200 people. The town has a population of 2,500. Gigantic 300-ton trucks built by Caterpillar Inc. work the mine 24 hours a day. Each Caterpillar 793 can carry its own weight in ore, said Ramon Parra Jr., our tour guide and a retired mine worker. The mine has 25 such trucks each costing $3.5 million. But that fleet’s small compared with other mine operations, including Freeport-McMoRan’s mine in Morenci, Ariz. The Bagdad mine produces an average of more than 160 million pounds of copper each year. Ore from the Bagdad mine is crushed and pulverized to the consistency of flour. The metals are removed with chemicals. It takes 1 ton (2,000 pounds) of ore at the mine to get 6 pounds of copper. The Bagdad mine also yields smaller amounts of gold. A third mineral obtained from the mine is molybdenum, or moly, which is used to improve the physical properties of steel. An electronic billboard at the mine displays the current price of copper and other minerals as well as the Freeport-McMoRan stock for employees. Many workers are shareholders in Freeport, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol FCX. Freeport-McMoRan produces 250-pound sheets of copper on site that are trucked out for further processing and to make products like copper wire to transmit electricity. The sheets are 99.99% pure. Most of the copper produced at the Bagdad mine is destined for China, which is rapidly building up a modern infrastructure. Miners had to remove 1,000 feet of overburden (worthless rock) to get to the rich copper seams. They’ve since dug another 1,000 feet down. The company estimates that it could dig another 2,000 feet deeper to extract copper ore. That would put the floor of the open pit mine at sea level. The mine could have 100 years of productive use left, Parra said. From an overlook, the giant trucks look like Tonka toys as they slowly drive in and out of the mine. The sides of the mine look like stairs. Each of these stairs or “benches” is 50 feet deep. Freeport-McMoRan started offering free tours of the mine to interested people to show environmentalists how they were managing the land. A large area of the property is a dump for tailings, what’s left at the tail end of mineral extraction. These materials contain sulfuric acid and other chemicals harmful to living things. But Freeport-McMoRan says it goes to great lengths to recycle its chemicals and waste water and keep them contained. It later makes the land suitable for life again by adding a surface layer of “organics.” “This is reality. This isn’t the Garden of Eden,” Parra said. “It’s messy, I agree. But somebody’s got to do it.” Cities wouldn’t be able to power homes and businesses without the copper it mines, he says.

Next: The Big Sandy Shoot