Cottonwood AZ

Monday morning after 8 days of EOT is always an odd day.  The campground had 5 campers left in it.  I had a good chat last night with Mystery Rider from UT who had been 2 doors down the row and was now the nearest remaining camper.  It makes the break easier when everyone leaves and you have no one left, no more reason to be there.  Let’s get on with the net phase of this winter trip.

So up north we go, up I-17 about 75 miles to Cottonwood, near Sedona.  We have never been here before.  It has a reputation for its natural beauty and it might be true; it took Carlene 2 hours to find a campsite and that’s why we are in Cottonwood instead of Sedona.  It’s only 14 miles to Sedona.  We are here until Friday.  We did see a Bald Eagle on the way up, it flew right by us on the highway, very easy to see that big white head.  Hopefully I caught it on the dash cam.

After getting settled on our site we took a hike.  First stop was the Verde River.  This Arizona river is quite different, it has water in it!  Real liquid water!  Skye had a blast, swim, run, shake, roll in the sand, come out looking like a chocolate lab, back in for a swim.  Then we got to the hike.  There is a hill behind camp with a couple overlook decks part way up.  We took the longer route and that turned out to be a good thing.  We didn’t find the trail to the deck, we found the trail around behind the hill and up to the top.  There was no trail to the deck but who needs it when you’re on the top of the hill with an even better view!  But no trail down to the deck means going back the way we came.  Or does it?  We went part way back and took a trail to the west, around the hill and back toward camp.  It led down to a residential road thatI knew ended near where Skye was swimming.  But it didn’t connect without going through someone’s yard.  And apparently many people have done that because they had signs asking us not to.  So back to the trial.  I had noticed another trail headed north around the hill farther out so at hoped it would take us back without going up the hill again.  It did, sort of.  Not directly but out to a paved road and soon connecting to a dirt road and that took us back to the original tail and back to camp.  Too bad we didn’t track all of that on our trail app.

We are at 3300’ here, Ben Avery was around 1500’.  It is already cooler and will get cooler during the week.  By Friday it’ll be a high in the 60s, maybe below 40 at night.

The Verde River

There is a stick under here, I want it

Looking up towards the view deck

Miss Mudmut

Views from the top of the hill

Back in the Rio Verde RV Park

The hill

Sunset

Moonrise in the thin clouds

EOT, final day

 The Top 16 Shoot Off was the morning opener.  The top 16 men and Top 16 women went one-on-one in a side event style shoot off.  Several friends were in it and it’s always a fun event.  It has no affect on match scores but it’s big on bragging rights.  The Cumberland Kid came out on top.  It’s men vs men and women vs women but the final man and woman go head to head in the end.  It is seldom a foregone conclusion.

Then awards.  I got 10th In Frontiersman and have a nice buckle to show for it.  Those last 2 misses made the difference, I would have been 9th without them.  If I had not had those other two misses on the first day I would have 9th too.  So they didn’t matter at all!   I’m just a mite slower than I used to be.

After awards I hung around to talk with a a few people.  I got to know Whistling Will a couple years ago while working with him on set up.  He’s from Vancouver Island Canada and is now World Champion!  The Cumberland Kid is second overall, I just met him a couple days ago.  He’s a firefighter Paramedic in OH (also Ruby’s new boyfriend, for you SASS folks)

Once all that was done it was back to the camper  and start the after-action process.  I had guns to clean from 3 different events.  7 pistols,  2 rifles and a shotgun.  Then start packing.  I got as far as all the cleaning and packing the truck.  All the cowboy duds put away.  There is still plenty of camper packing to do in the morning.  While I was doing all that Carlene was finding u a campsite in Sedona, about 75 miles north.  It is a beautiful place according to all reports so naturally it’s full.  She finally found a place.  It is also supposed to cool off next week.  It might get to having our present nighttime high as our daytime high in the 60s.

We have had the New England gang over to our camper for some happy hour after awards but this year it seemed that everyone was bugging out.  Tyler is planing to be at work in Maine by 3 PM tomorrow!  Good thing he’s young!  And the Slippery clan is flying out in about an hour.  Speaking of them it was a thrill to see Sweet Mariss and Smiley Kyleigh side by side in the Cowgirl category winners!

Sunrise

Campers as I head to the shoot off

Many will be gone when I return

Start

The Cumberland Kid (L)

Whistling Will (R)

Dueling Des

As I post this I cannot tell who is involved

Polly Wanda Krakker is on the left

I met her in Plainsman and complimented her alias

Half-A-Hand Henri in her Dunbar clan Kilt

Lots of buckles!

Frontiersman category winners

Classic Cowgirls

Buckarette category 

That’s the under 14 yr old girls

Sassy Kate 6th place

The only La Reina category

That’s the over 85 year old group!

And she shot clean too!

Cowgirl

An ultra-lite

There are usually many hot air balloons, we don’t know why we didn’t see any this year

Moon at sunset

Not very big but a very nice design

EOT 3

 Third and final day of the EOT Main Match.  The last four stages went well until my last few shots when I got 2 misses.  I don’t recall having 2, but all 3 spotters said I did, so I must have.  Carlene and I had ice cream afterwards to celebrate the finale.  Maybe I should have had it before shooting.  I shot clean yesterday after having ice cream.  😁

I wandered around the vendor tents for a while before going out to do some shopping, Rx, hardware, propane, diesel etc.  preparing for the time warp back to the 21st century.

This evening was the final banquet, a very good roast beef with all the fixings.  Then some awards and a live band.  I stayed a BT longer than Carlene but by 9 the gang of friends was headed home so I’m back in the camper earlier than i have been for a few days.  Skye is still enjoying a nap outdoors.

Some of the vendors 

The food area

The ladies of Posse 4

Going to dinner

After dinner

The band

EOT 2

 Day 2 of the Main Match.  I shot a clean day on the 2 PM wave, it was just over 90º. I think the ice cream before shooting was a help!

This evening was the Mexican dinner (green chili beef burritos) Side Event Awards and the World Championship of Cowboy Bingo.  We didn’t win anything but had a fine time.

After the VT-NH group closed down the main tent we went over to Milo’s but found that they had already gone to bed so we hung out with the neighbors for a while.

It was Red Shirt Friday, can you tell?

Lady Jane

Sassy Boots

I know I saw Jupiter again. The sky is not all that dark here. Between the waxing Moon and the city just south of us the dim planets are hard to find.