Tucson 2

 We took this from a simple errands & a hike day to a long winded day pretty easily.  That’s how a day off works, isn’t it?

Went out do run a few errands, like locating the office where Carlene has an eye appointment in 2 weeks.  That became just slightly complicated when we went to the address she had and it wasn’t there!  Turned out to be a simple error, it was across the street and the name was facing away from us.

Next was a hike in a city park where dogs on leash are welcome.  We found the park.  The parking lot was under construction and we couldn’t park there.  Carlene found another park on the map a couple blocks north, one with a trail around a lake.  It had a steep drop to the water and the sign said it was reclaimed water, no swimming or wading allowed.  We walked a bit but it was very clear it would be torture for Skye to walk 8’ from water and not be able to swim.  So we walked a block north because there was supposed to be another trail up there.  It went a block along the dry spillway where a few homeless people had their camps.  Then it came to a busy 4 lane road.  Turn around and try again.  I had seen another entry to the first park on another road on the map.  That turned out to be a good one.  We did a couple miles in there, along trails and beside a wash.  Nice desert trails.

Then to a grocery store, bike shop and Dunkin’ for Carlene’s iced coffee.

Finally back to camp!    the city traffic on this east side of Tucson is pretty good.  Lots of 4 lane roads, very little traffic issues.  But it gets tiring.

We just had a sunset walk with Skye around the campground and I’m ready to sit for a while.

Off to Safford and boondocking again tomorrow.  We’ll be there maybe 5 days.

Skye, waiting for Carlene to take a flower photo

I wouldn’t fish from that bridge!

It has been a while since I posted a sunset

Tucson 1

 Travel day once again. I get so involved with EOT that I forget what all the travel days are like. It took a while to get the trailer packed this morning.  Pack all the Cowboy duds, load the bicycles, the generators, rearrange the other stuff so it all fits.  And of course it’s not arranged the same as it was before.  

It was 11 when we got moving.  That was just to move to a site (campsite behind the horse arena have full hookups) where we could use the septic dump.  We’d decided to dump there instead of in Tucson, so we didn’t have to haul the waste water.  Then I discovered two soft tires on the tire pressure monitor.  Get out the compressor.  Plug that into the next guys site since the power boxes were locked. The find a leaky valve stem.  Flub around with that for an hour.  And the sensor on that particular tire was not working right.  It shows 0 psi one minute and 70# the next. Probably a weak battery.  Switched it to another tire so I could monitor the tire with the valve issue.  Tonight I tried to replace the battery but it’s too tight to get it open.  Grrr!

Arrived in Tucson at the fairgrounds for two nights. Refilled the fresh water so all’s ready for boondocking in a couple days. 

This twig was first noticed January 16, hooked on the trailer TV antenna

I finally removed it this morning

I handed it to Skye…

Skye quickly made sure that twig would never get hooked onto anything else!

Camping at the fairgrounds 

Warm & water sunny day, shorts & T Shirt weather

Phoenix 11, end of EOT

 First thing this morning was the Top 16 Shootoff, the 16 highest scoring men and 16 women go up one-on-one until there is only one left.  It can be a lot of fun to watch.  Since it is a single elimination match you never know for sure who will win each round.

Then hang around for an hour until awards were ready.

Our posse did very well!  Of the 16 of us I think we had at least 10 winning awards.

I got 3rd place in Frontiersman!  And my miss and P didn’t mean much.  While I was only a short way in front of Kougarok George I was over 100 seconds behind the 2nd place guy, and 130 behind 1st place.  I am simply not capable of those speeds!  That’s a difference of 10 seconds per stage.

In Wild Bunch Sr Modern I was 15th out of 39.

After the awards we had several of the NE people come over to the camper for some socializing, I think we spent a couple hours.  

Then it was a couple more hours of packing.  I got the truck all packed which included packing all my cowboy clothes and guns.  I didn’t get any gun cleaning done yesterday or today so that’ll have to happen when I get onto some boondocks camping.  

We will try to get into Catalina State Park down near Tucson tomorrow.

This is Jack Dalton, his son Dutch Thomas and their 1 year old dog Teddy Roosevelt

TR has a rider on his back

Start of awards, a table full of them

Another table full on the left side

The 7 Frontiersman winners

Outdoor photo of the Frontiersman

The two overall winners

Dead Eye Dillard and Cimarron Sonya

I think it was 2 years ago that I shot with Sonya and her sister & father.  IIRC she’s about 17

The gang at the camper

Phoenix 10, last day of shooting

 Last day of shooting at EOT. We shot the late shift at 2 PM and were done around 4. 

I finished in good shape, another clean day with all raw times between 28 and 38 seconds overall.  Tomorrow we’ll see if that is good enough for a buckle.  

We had a good fun posse, everyone worked and jumped in making it easy for everyone.  

This morning we watched the mounted shooting for a while. It’s always fun to see this game on horseback!  I always look at it as my alternate time line. 

This evening we had a banquet dinner of roast beef or chicken.  The beef was excellent even though there wasn’t any rare meat left when I got there.  

Then they had the evening wear costume contest, always a good show.  

Flag ceremony

The object in mounted shooting is to shoot these red or blue balloons in a certain pattern.  

The pattern weaves a bit going out, with 5 sots; then around a barrel and a straight line to run fast back with 5 more shots.

This one runs it in 14.034 seconds

Phoenix 9, EOT main match day 2

 Second day of EOT CAS

Today was the second day of the End of Trail World Championship of Cowboy Action Shooting.  

We shot 4 of the 12 stages at 8 AM.  Tomorrow we have the last 4 at 2 PM

I had a clean day today, no misses and all in the right order!

This afternoon was gun cleaning then wandering among the vendors again.  I bought some primers and considered a couple other things.  Considering them is a lot cheaper than buying them!

This evening was a Mexican dinner, side event awards and Bingo.

I won First Place in the Sr. Traditional category Plainsman!  I’ve had 3rd & 4th place 4 times, so when they handed out 3rd & 2nd I just figured that was that.  I about fell out of my chair!

Carlene and I played Bingo along with 5 friends from the posse.  We had the low scores of the group, Roy almost won a game, he was 1 number away.  High score for the evening won an EOT belt buckle “EOT World Champion Bingo”!🤣

Meanwhile Carlene went back to Lake Pleasant and Skye got to swim again!