A Dangerous Hobby...

OK, so I have to tell someone this, or I'll explode, and I don't really want to tell my wife, cause she'll worry the next time I run off to take pictures. This evening, I noticed that the sunset was an odd color, so I decided to take some pictures. I hopped in my car and drove up Kennedy road a bit to get away from the houses and trees that would block my view. I stopped where the road crests the hill right before it curves around candy mountain, and pulled out my gear. For 5-10 minutes, I snapped pictures, until the color I was looking for left the sky, then I put away my camera. Just as I got my camera in the bag, and had closed it up, I heard a voice behind me. I had been so wrapped up in taking pictures and breaking down my camera that I didn't hear him approach. I hadn't made out what he had asked me, so I turned around and said "huh?"

"What're you up here taking pictures of?" The light was a little behind him, so I couldn't make out facial details, but I thought for a second it was someone I knew playing a trick on me. He looked fairly young, late teens or early 20's, but it was hard to tell in that light. He had his hands resting on something that came about chest high. His tone of voice was slightly hostile or accusatory, but I didn't immediately pick up on that. Again, thinking that he was someone I knew, I responded "taking pictures of the sunset."

"Don't you bullshit me!" he said. It was about this point that I realized that I didn't know him at all. In my mind, I just thought "whatever", and snorting in derision, I turned and walked around my car, and got in the drivers seat. As I did, he turned and walked away, and I saw what it was he had been resting his arms on. In his right hand he carried a rifle with a scope on it, and I was struck how that conversation could have turned out very differently. I was a little frustrated, because of the 2 of us, only he was doing anything close to illegal (Coming out with his gun could be considered brandishing), and yet he probably thought he was defending his property or privacy or some such nonsense.