While Cerwin went through orientation and met other hunters, I went outside to photograph memories from this hotel in Osage, Missouri.

It was a beautiful day for a walk.

Nineteen of the twenty vans that will take the hunters to their locations on Saturday morning. #15 van was missing when I took this picture.

The entrance area of the hotel is the fourth floor – because it is built on a hill overlooking a lake. Our room is on the second floor.

I went inside to locate the hunters who were in orientation. There were three different times throughout the day for the hunters to attend – each orientation was the same, so they had to only attend one.

The 10:00 a.m. orientation when Cerwin attended. He is wearing the orange shirt, and never knew I was there because I did not use a flash to take the picture.

The owners of Whitetail Trophy Hunt are Don and Craig – father and son – and this is Craig’s wife Julie who takes care of the clothing store.

Cerwin thought that he would be pleased with a rack like this. 🙂

The meals at the hunt begin with supper, so we went out to Bandana’s for a light lunch.

This is where Kevin and Mark took us for supper the night before, and the smoked meat was a draw for Cerwin, even though there were many restaurants much closer.

Cerwin’s lunch of a smoked beef sandwich and potato salad.

My lunch was this grilled corn on the cob. Yum!

On the way back to the hotel, Cerwin noticed that our speedometer had all the same numbers.

There is a puzzle being put together in the lobby next to where I am working on my counted cross stitch.

It is a very appropriate puzzle for a white tail hunt.

6:00 p.m. supper is on the third floor – just below the lobby.

The room was filled to capacity with 171 hunters and many non-hunting spouses. Julie (owner’s wife) thought there are 60 non-hunting spouses. I will probably find out the exact amount today when we have our first meeting.

This man “spoke a blessing” on the hunters.

Owner Don welcomed everyone.

His son Craig also shared a few words.

This hunt is a big deal – with lots of prizes – because they are celebrating their 25th anniversary. This man (left) was awarded a free hunt because he has hunted with White Tail Trophy Hunt all twenty-five years.

After the meal, the hunters learned where they will be hunting in the morning. Cerwin is writing down N-02 which is what hunt the computer chose for him.

Then he found table N to learn about his tree stand. We understand that 02 means that he has Stand #2 on that farm.

The taxidermist recommended by this hunt has a display in the banquet room lobby.

The view outside our motel window before we went to bed.

We went to bed early because Cerwin’s alarm will ring at 2:30 a.m. He will eat breakfast, pick up his lunch bag, then be at the door at 4:15 when his van will be at the door to take his group of hunters to the farm.